Nigeria
Nigeria Delegation
July 31-August 8, 2010
Filmmaker: Kim Snyder, Welcome to Shelbyville
Expert: Bart Weiss
Our Man In Nigeria
Bart Weiss Brings Documentaries to Africa
Courtesy of KERA Art&Seek
Our Man in Nigeria: Bart Weiss Brings Documentaries to Africa
Today, I am headed to Nigeria with documentary filmmaker Kim Snyder, who is bring her brand new film Welcome to Shelbyville, a portrait of a small town in Tennessee that has had trouble with integration – first, an influx of Hispanics, then Muslim refugees from Somalia. It’s the kind of film that bring empathy and humanism to the immigration debate, so often mostly filled with rhetoric. [read more]
Kano
Our Man in Nigeria: Day 1
Kim Snyder and I arrived in Kano, Nigeria, late Saturday night. Kano is in the north part of the country, is mostly Muslim and is ruled by sharia law. Today was supposed to be a day off to acclimate, but we were asked to have a meeting with filmmakers from Kano – which was great (and in a Chinese restaurant). We started by hearing about what kind of production was going on and learning about Kanowood, a kind of sister to the Nollywood films elsewhere in Nigeria. These films all have some sort of music, but they are not called musicals – here, a musical is a music video with added interviews. We also talked about how all the films that can get DVD distribution need to pass through a Muslim censure board. Since there are no traditional commercial theaters, this means that if you don’t get passed by the board, your film cannot get seen. The discussion around the table was quite lively.[read more]
Our Man in Nigeria: Day 2
Today, we spent most of the day in a master class for professional filmmakers in Kano. We showed films but mostly talked about how to construct a contemporary documentary. Most of their ideas about documentary films are either scripted educational films or political documentaries – just like it was when I visited Pakistan with this project last year. The filmmakers had not heard of the term cinema verite, and the concept seemed, well, foreign. But they were really interested. We talked in detail about recording sound, lighting, directing and developing a project. They seemed eager, so I look forward to our more hands-on teaching planned for tomorrow. [read more]
Our Man in Nigeria: Day 3
We wrapped up the master class in Kano today. We screened Kim’s film Welcome to Shelbyville and got a great response. They really got the idea of what a documentary could be. Later we workshopped and developed some of the students’ ideas, talking about how to expand them, make them deeper and more entertaining, and, thus, more interesting to audiences abroad. [read more]
Abuja
Our Man in Nigeria: Day 4
Wednesday morning we took off for Abuja early (6 a.m. ) by car. Or, rather, I should say a fully armored vehicle...When we got to town, Kim did a short master class at a movie theater and I ran two screenings at the Cyprian Ekwernsie Center for Art and Culture. [read more]
Lagos
Our Man in Nigeria: Day 5
Day five started early. Our wake-up call came at 5:30, and for some reason I had no sleep. We got to the airport, went through security, took the bus to the plane and saw a bunch of bags outside of the plane. Apparently, you have to identify your bags before they can go on, which kind of makes sense. But I had not seen that before, and for that matter I did not see my bags. So pretty much everybody was on the plane except me and my bags. I had visions of never seeing my bags again. But then they showed. This baggage mess made us very late, so when we finally got to Lagos (pronounced like the toys) our first program was almost over before we got there.
[read more]
Our Man in Nigeria: Day 6
Today we spent the day in a master class with a great group of filmmakers from Lagos. Almost all of them make Nollywood films. We had lots of actors , writers , directors, cinematographers and producers. We also had more women that any stop along the way. We started by showing Welcome to Shelbyville and had a great discussion. We were able to get into issues the film deals with, talked about how it was created and how the Nigerian filmmakers could create something like that here. They asked about funding, to which I tell them to take the Nike approach: Just do it. I asked how many people had cameras, and enough hands went up to get the point: they could do it. But we were careful to point out that it might be riskier to produce powerful documentaries in Nigeria. One filmmaker told me he was jailed three times after making a film. [read more]
Kim Snyder
Interview on Tribeca Film Institute blog
You recently showed the film to an audience in Nigeria as part of the State Department’s American Documentary Showcase. Tell us a little bit about that experience and how you think your film might have made an impact there.
The program is really amazing, and my assignment to Nigeria was an unanticipated part of the film's early journey. I showed the film in 3 different cities, to both public audiences and filmmaking communities ("Nollywood" caters to a large and diverse African market). First, Nigerian filmmakers struggle with some profound issues of censorship within their country, so they were very eager to initiate conversation about how we, as independent filmmakers, work here in the US. Moreover, while a robust filmmaking community exists, the entire genre of cinema verite is essentially new ground, so it was thrilling to see the switch being turned on for many of them as they watched the number of docs that were shown as part of the AmDocs program, along with my own.
In terms of the reaction to Welcome to Shelbville and the impact it may have had, it was particularly striking to show the film in Kano, a largely Muslim city in northern Nigeria. Only weeks before, there had been acts of ethnic and religious violence in a neighboring city of Jos, and it provoked profound discussion around issues of race, and the misconceptions of Islam in the world today. One young man from the audience noted, “The film captured the essence of democracy well, the lesson for us in this country is that if a community is small, like Shelbyville – it can come together on so many levels. I think the message is that democracy doesn’t guarantee anything, it just says to you, you have the opportunity to pursue happiness and liberty but it’s also a challenge as well…” while another commented, “We have seen the impact documentary films can actually make in peoples’ lives. I want to encourage us to follow your footsteps – we should use the medium to change things in our society too.”