– Marco Carvalho
The World Refugee Day – held all over the world on the 20th of June – was observed in Macau last Saturday. The Association for Refugees’ Welfare of Macau promoted once again a film sharing day with the aim of honoring the courage, the strength and the determination of all those that were forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence. The event, which was free and open to the public, was also an opportunity for the association to raise funds that will be used to assist refugees around the world through the global relief work program of the United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR.
Saint John de Brito School, a college that belongs to Caritas Macau, played host to the world premiere of Kakuma, My City, a documentary feature directed by Australian filmmaker Harrison Thane that portrays everyday life in Kakuma, one of the largest refugee camps in northern Kenya.
The film follows Anne, Kakuma refugee camp’s new arrival, a displaced teenager from South Sudan, and Ignatius, a visually impaired man from the local Turkana community.
Anne and Ignatius take the viewers on a tour of the diverse communities that call Kakuma their home. The documentary depicts the many ways in which the Kenyan and the refugee communities are cooperating and working together as neighbors.
Produced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and made almost entirely by refugees themselves, Kakuma, My City aims to show how the local communities and the displaced populations can both benefit from their unique ingenuity and creativity.
Harrison Thane, who joined last Saturday the world premiere of the movie, spent six weeks researching and filming with the purpose of telling the story of the different refugee communities that live in Kakuma and neighboring Kalobeyei refugee settlements, as well of the Turkana community that generously hosts the refugees on their land in Kenya. The young Australian director spoke to O Clarim about the project and the way it changed his life. There’s more to being a refugee than despair and displacement, Mr Thane says. There’s also dreams and hope and in Kakuma – a city on its own – that can be seen everywhere.
Congratulations on the documentary. It’s startling in several ways: it’s visually breathtaking and it shows us another kind of face to this refugee question, an alternative to what we are used to seeing in Western societies, like Europe or Australia. We tend to see refugees as invaders and this is a message of hope. Is it important for you to convey this kind of message?
Yes. The film is important in this way, because refugees themselves were graduates of a film school in the camp. They were tired of seeing the refugee camps – and particularly that one – in a bad light. The general opinion, in the Western world is that they live in squalor, they are poor, they don’t have access to anything. They are just there waiting to die or to go home, which is really not true if you see the film. The refugees were really keen to make a film that represented the spirit of Kakuma, one that could account that the refugees are not just people waiting around. They were tired of being seen as people who have no hope, that depend on the NGOs for their food. They are entrepreneurs, they are teachers, they are students, they are a lot of things. It is really important for everybody to know this and that was the main aim of the film.
You managed to convey precisely that idea. As you were saying, the film was made in very tough conditions. Kakuma sits on a very rough landscape, but nevertheless, the idea that we get is that it is, in a certain sense, an oasis of hope. Did you feel, after all those months that you spent there, that this is truly a city on its own?
It definitely is. It’s an incredible place. The greatest thing about this city is the fact that is is an economic hub not only for the refugees, but for the Turkana too. The Turkana are the native people of this region of Kenya. Without this camp, the Turkana – who are Kenyans, wouldn’t be able to rely on them for water or anything, really …
I was going to ask you about that. Kakuma is not a common refugee camp in the way we imagine refugee camps. In Kakuma, we see a sort of symbiosis between the local people, the Turkana people, which are traditionally shepherds and artisans, if I am not wrong. Now, we are witnessing a small revolution. They grow their own food, they have agro-business projects. Did Kakuma bring new opportunities also for the local people?
This shows that a refugee camp can be a valuable resource for a country, in the sense that the Turkana people have access to everything that the refugees have access to. Refugees brought the UNHCR, which built the camp. The camp brought the NGOs, which manage all the training and all the facilities: the health systems, the hospitals, the water, the agricultural technology that they need to make their crops in an absolute barren land. Before the camp there was a lot of famine in this area of the country and a lot of deaths and not a lot happening, really, at all. This camp has brought a lot and it is actually a valuable economic resource for Kenya. It is important that Kenya and other countries see that there is a way that these camps can be beneficial to people.
Is this a valuable message also for Western countries? If we look at what has been happening in the Mediterranean in the last few years, we see a lot of people losing their lives just because they dream of a better life. We don’t see that here. We see life. Was it your concern to show this entrepreneurial face of the refugees?
If you look at our film, basically no one is denying that in the refugee camp, in this refugee crisis, there are horrible things happening. There are many, many films that display this. There are thousands of articles and newspapers stories about their plight. What there aren’t thousands of is the other side of the refugee crisis. And the other side of the crisis is this sense of community, it’s this kind of spirit that they have to just keep on going in circumstances that are just beyond what you and I could imagine. Their resilience, the way that they just keep working and try to live a normal life as much as possible, is utterly remarkable.
One of the most amazing things about this movie is the fact that you were probably the only one that was not a refugee in the crew that made this documentary. The team that worked with you was displaced in Kenya. The cameramen, which made an amazing work, is himself a refugee. Does this aspect make the documentary even more valuable?
This documentary couldn’t have been made the way it is without the refugees. I was given a sudden brief and when I first entered the camp I didn’t knew what to expect. I didn’t knew who these refugees were that they had assigned to me. I didn’t know if I was the one going to be teaching them; I didn’t know if I was the one to teach them about the story telling or anything like this, but it was actually the other way round. They were the ones that were teaching me and the only way we could do this was in collaboration. We wrote the scripts together, we helped each other. Both the team and I had things to teach. There were things in which I was better at and things in which they were better at. Through collaboration we came to this. My goal was to be able to help them make a film that would be seen by the world and this is what happened.
You mentioned, in your intervention, that you have interviewed hundreds of people to tell the right story. How did you came up with Anne?
We wanted to find a female hero to the story. Basketball is a huge thing at the camp and there are all these girls playing basketball. They look very fierce on the court, someone that you could really get behind and tell a story. We decided we could use basketball to tell these girls’ stories, the problems they face. It was hard to find anyone, mainly because people look fierce in the court and talk to you pretty confidently, but the fact is that when you put someone on the spot, when they face the camera, they are quite shy and intimidated. We were almost giving up hope and then in one of the auditions, Anne came in and she was like: “Hi, I am Anne! I am a basketball player. I play basketball with the boys. I fear that I might hurt the girls.” We realized immediately that she was our main character. She just lead the whole film. She was such an amazing player. We wrote the scripts on her life. A lot of the scenes in the film are her dreams. It was quite fun to work with her.
This was your first time working with refugees. Would you repeat this sort of experience? Are you willing to return to Kakuma and retell Anne’s stories five years from now?
Definitely. The moment I started making this film, I just knew I would always work for the refugees and with refugees till the last day of my life. It was the most rewarding experience. Following their stories is just an amazing experience. I would really love to see Anne in five years. You know, with the Internet these days, I am in contact with most of the people I met. Anne and I, we are always talking. Anne is now a teacher in the camp. We talk, I am always willing to help if she needs something. She can’t believe that her songs are being played around the world. You know what? Sometimes, I would just be on set and I would tell her: “Anne, could you write a song about basketball?” The next day she would bring this completely originally song about basketball. She would sing her heart out about it. She’s just so incredibly talented.
You have been living and working in Africa for many years now. You have another project that empowers the local communities. Can you tell us a little bit more about this other project, Zinister?
Oh, you know it? Zinister is a project that … Well, it came from a few different places, but one of the challenges that I thought could be bridged with photojournalism was this: as a “mzungo”, a white person working in environments such as a refugee camp or slum or somewhere else, you will always stand out and you will never really get the true story. You will never get the complete story; people will either ask for money or they are going to tell you exactly what you want to hear or they won’t talk to you at all. We thought: “Why can’t we do a more collaborative kind of journalism with people living in these environments?”. We started to do workshops in a slum called Kibera where we would teach journalism, photography skills and basic design. Basically, we put the pen in their hands because they had unrestricted access to their whole world. The stories we get back are incredible because no one has that kind of access. I am talking about the kind of access that a family member does or a village shopkeeper does in their neighborhoods.
This kind of narrative… Both the narrative about the refugees and the narrative about Africa? Is it still too Westernized?
Yes, it is. And its a shame that it is. That’s what we are trying to change. Storytelling is storytelling anywhere and I see Africa as one of the most amazing storytelling landscapes. Whether they live differently from Westerners, their stories are actually more incredible and inspiring. I think that people should give Africa a better chance. I think we will see in the next 10, 15 years that Africa will start to have its own narrative. A narrative of determination and a narrative of success in some of their endeavors.
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