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One on One with Jeremy Robbins, Director of the Other Side of the Water co-Directed by Magali Damas
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3. What were the cinematic challenges that you faced in shooting this movie and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge had more to do with the editing – finding a coherent story line through all the layers and angles and side-stories and characters. We left a lot out, and the story is still pretty complex, but I think it came together well. The cinematic challenges had to do with filming a moving procession that happened late at night. We had to figure out portable lighting solution, and a camera stabalizer to follow the band in motion.
4. Is this your first movie? If not, how did previous work helped you make this a better documentary?
This was the first feature documentary for both Magi and me. We had each done short projects on our own, and worked together on some short projects – so that experience all helped. But a feature documentary is its own huge challenge, and there’s a lot that has to be learned along the way.
5. Do you see this movie accomplishing the task of transforming the ways in which Haitians are viewed in New York?
I hope so. The goal wasn’t to present a one-dimensional picture of the musicians as heroes. I think that by revealing all the complexity and nuance and the different perspectives and different voices in the community, a viewer has to come away with a much more realistic and sympathetic understanding of the community. And my hope is that viewers can also come away with a better understanding of the political, cultural, and class struggles that ALL immigrant communities in America have to deal with in some way.
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CULTURE-NIGERIA: Writers, Film-makers Defy Censors
By Amina Koki Gizo
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Kano State government officials have burned books they say promote immorality
Credit: Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino/IPS |
KANO, Sep 12 (IPS) - "I don't sell cocaine," says the video vendor in Kano's Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango's music video CD Bahaushiya. He is not referring to the white powder, but instead a new illegal substance -- Hausa films that have not passed through the Kano State Censors Board.
The video CD I'm asking for is an especially hot drug: a series of six music videos satirising corrupt old men, lamenting fickle girlfriends, and featuring dancing Hausa girls. The musician, Adam Zango, also an actor and director in the Hausa film industry, was arrested and jailed for three months for releasing the collection during a ban on Hausa filmmaking in Kano.
The censors board in Nigeria's northern Kano State was instituted in 2001 after the controversial implementation of Islamic shari'a law in Kano State. Film-making was at first banned outright, but the filmmakers' association of Northern Nigeria (MOPPAN) suggested a "review" board as a compromise measure, which allowed the industry to continue, though with certain restrictions on language, dress and "close dancing between men and women." (Five of the ten laws were specifically related to women's clothing or interaction with men.)
The censors board and the film industry underwent an even more dramatic transformation in August 2007, when a private mobile phone video of a popular Hausa actress and her lover having sex was leaked to the public. The actress, Maryam "Hiyana", and the man who had surreptitiously recorded the video immediately went into hiding.
Within days, hundreds of black market entrepreneurs in Kano, the centre of the Hausa-language film industry, were charging thousands of naira to see what was being called "the first Hausa blue film". Outraged religious and political leaders called for an indefinite suspension of the Kano film industry and the mass expulsion of other performers suspected of "improper" behavior.
By late September, the Kano State Censorship Board, under the leadership of its new Director General, Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, had issued new, stricter guidelines to both filmmakers and writers in the state. Article 97 of the censorship regulations states that "Any person who... publicly exhibits any indecent stage show or performance, play or any show or performance tending to corrupt public morals, is guilty of an offence and is liable to imprisonment for 3 months or to a fine or to both such imprisonment and fine."
The imprisonment clause has been put into effect several times. Besides Adam Zango, who was imprisoned in September 2007, pioneering Hausa director and former Kano State gubernatorial candidate Hamisu Lamido Iyan Tama was jailed after copies of his film Tsintsiya were impounded from a video shop in Kano in May 2008. He was accused of not registering his company Iyan Tama Multimedia with the censorship board.
(A court case reveals that the company had, in fact, registered and paid the required fees.) Ironically, the director was arrested the day of his return from the Zuma Film Festival in Abuja where Tsintsiya had won an award for Best Film on Social Issue.
The new censorship regime has had the effect of suppressing Hausa filmmaking in Kano, Northern Nigeria's largest city. The exact size of the industry is hard to determine, but a 2002 study by the national censors board counted 133 Hausa films produced between January and August of that year, making the Hausa film industry second in size only to Yoruba.
Although filmmakers are still doing post-production in Kano, locations have been moved to neighboring states, the majority now being shot in neighbouring Kaduna State. Filmmakers bypass the Kano State Censors Board by marking "Not for sale in Kano" on their films and selling them in other states.
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