the beginning

It has taken me a long time to figure out how to talk about this project. What it is. What it is to me. And, also, who I am. This past February, I went to Malawi with my family - wife and two daughters. I went without any real agenda aside from a few writing projects. Those aside, I had the goal of finding a way to embed myself within the community, to try to get to know people and to become known to the people in Balaka, the town where we were living. I started off playing pool, learning Chichewa and wandering from bar to bar. Slowly I began to meet like minded individuals - writers, artists, actors, TV cameramen. I had a vague idea for a small character drama and after a couple months, I could no longer ignore that Balaka had everything necessary for a small feature film. All that was missing was a little glue to put the pieces together. It had to be small. It had to be relevant both to the Malawian reality and to my own interests and ideas. Also, it had to be in Chichewa, a language I was only just beginning to learn.

In April I banged out the script and, paranoid about the arrogance of going to a new place and presuming to capture anything at all Malawian (vs Malawians acting out my first impressions of Malawi), I sat down with Sam Kanyama Khwiya, one of Malawi's preeminent playwrights, who, serendipitously is from Balaka and happened to be working on my wife's research project. We worked the script into something that felt real and interesting to both of us and then began translating it.

There are hordes of Malawian actors. Most are involved in community theater, taking NGO and government messages about AIDS, the environment, gender, etc to the villages via drama. So, I taped a couple scenes with some actors I had met - Kisswell Mandala and Alick Gaisi - and, afterward, I remember feeling a kind of panic. Because I had absolutely no excuse not to make the movie. It was to the point that if I didn't do it, not only would it always be an overpowering regret, but I would be unable to complain, the way we film people do, about lack of opportunity, material, collaborators, etc.

Jenny and I sat down and figured out how much we could stand to loose (given that we couldn't stand to lose anything) and I posted a plea for help on our family travel blog (Where is Malawi?). A few friends, old and new, volunteered some additional money and suddenly I had script, budget, location and principle actors. Talk about a snowball picking up speed. Next, I wandered down to the Catholic mission TV station and enlisted a couple cameramen. Then, I met with different drama groups and held auditions.

Everything was in place. Except...the goddamn equipment. Malawi is a tricky place. What electronics are available, are not cheap. I ran around the country meeting with various people but came up empty. Finally, out of nowhere, the Goethe Institute, a German NGO that liaises with the German cultural office, offered a camera and mic. Free of charge. We're definitely not giving Michael Mann a challenge in terms of being on the cutting edge of digital filmmaking, but again, there were the pieces, all lined up.

The story, which my advertising brain seems summarily unable to spin into a catchy paragraph, follows Innocent, an orphan who lucks into a marriage with Loda, a girl from a good family. But their first child, Thokozani, dies and their life savings are stolen through the abuse of a cultural tradition. Their efforts to make money come to nothing and Innocent is forced to stand aside as Loda gravitates towards work as a bargirl (different from a prostitute, but close enough). The plot is a little difficult to discuss because of how different the Malawian reality is from America's. Also, because I really hope we managed an honest look at some difficult issues and didn't fall into the exploitation trap. Life's tough in Malawi. Most people's lives are defined by what you can build and what you can grow. Especially without education, a man's worth is frequently tied to how much he can lift, while a woman's is tied to how attractive she is to men. It's an exchange economy where everything is in play.

So, after a week of rehearsals, we shot the movie. Nothing I can write will capture the intensity of it. I will just say that even if no movie comes from the footage, every dollar kwacha was worth it.

This blog is an effort to capture a little of the road I've been down and a little of the road leading forward. Because as far as the project has come, the end is much, much farther away.