2011
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Lucy Gebre-Egziabher
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Question: Could you talk about your journey from Ethiopia to the United States and perhaps in between? You also have Egyptian heritage. How do you identify yourself?
Lucy.: When people ask me where I'm from I say Ethiopia. Technically, I was born in Egypt, my mother is Egyptian, and my father is Ethiopian. I moved from Egypt when I was six, I moved to Ethiopia during the Israeli-Egyptian War. I stayed until I was almost eighteen. I pretty much grew up in Ethiopia and I consider it my home, I am familiar with the language, and the people.
Q. Do you feel that you have a dual identity?
Lucy: Absolutely! I associate my Egyptian-ness with my mother and I hold on to that because I have a great love for my mother. As for my identity, in recent years, I started questioning myself—"Who am I? What is my mission in life?"and other numerous questions—the question of identity arose in the process, and its a very important question!
Q. “How about your identity as African in the West?
Lucy. That's part of it, my position as an African in the West is what began the questioning process.
Q.: Could you talk about your process and how you became interested in cinema?
Lucy: Let's talk about why I wanted to be a filmmaker, aside from having the passion for cinema as a visual art that came a long time ago when I was still in Ethiopia though I dismissed it. Maybe it was a manifestation of the mis-education of myself, my heritage, my history. While I was in Ethiopia and I am sure any African could tell you this story on the screen all we saw were white faces. The images that we saw on the screen made us want to come to America, to live the American dream, to wear the clothes and so on Realizing how powerful this medium is and how destructive it could be, at first I jumped into it almost idealistically. "I want to educate my people!" Why don't we show our faces on the screen? Why don't we show the wealth of our history? Why don't we ever see a film about the Battle of Adwa? Why do we have to celebrate the British soldiers by the river battling the Japanese? Why can't we see our own soldiers battling the Italians, defeating the Italians with spears and shields.
Q: So it was in Ethiopia that you began to ask these questions?
Lucy: No, it was much later. As a kid in Ethiopia, having consumed so many Hollywood movies, we were influenced by them to the point where we decided to name a place near my house "Chicago." It was a very natural place with waterfalls, trees, and rocks, nothing like Chicago.
Q: Of course, you had not been to Chicago before?
Lucy: Never. Through the films that we saw and consumed there was always a notion of America, and everybody wanted to go to America to the point that we were totally immersed in those images. That was all that we wanted and all we saw.
Q: Have you been to Chicago since?
Lucy” Yes, and I remember when I went, I just laughed and I couldn't wait to take pictures to send back to my friends. That shows you the power of images!
Q.: So, you went from consumer of images to a maker of images.?...
Lucy: Once I started to pursue filmmaking—and, by the way, I don't consider it a career, it is a passion—I started studying what it takes to make a film: the initial idea, the script development, the production, post-production. And with this comes the realization that it starts with a thought and it can evolve into a film that is displayed and screened for millions of people. To me film is the most powerful medium in the world. It could be used for good or bad; a lot of people form images based on it, good or bad. What is most important is who is showing these images, and what the consequences are of screening those images, what it does to our psyche.
Recently, I wanted to buy a Bible for Alexia, the daughter of a friend of mine I looked all over and all the Bibles that I saw had pictures of white displayed and screened for millions of people. To me film is the most powerful medium in the world. It could be used for good or bad; a lot of people form images based on it, good or bad. What is most important is who is showing these images, and what the consequences are of screening those images, what it does to our psyche. I looked all over and all the Bibles that I saw had pictures of white figures and icons. Africans, African-Americans, children of color in general, look at white images and associate them with the Bible. I started questioning a lot: "What does that do to them while they are growing up?" Again, film is another means.
Q.: Could you talk about how you relate identity to your filmmaking?
Lucy: Well, asking the questions, "Who am I? What defines my Ethiopian-ness?" began the awakening stage. Then, from asking the question of "What is my Ethiopian-ness?" I further explored my bi-culture identity, my Egyptian part, and then the larger question of my African part. So, what evolved from the questions was the realization that I had a big void to fill, and if I ever was going to fill this void I would have to do so myself. The schools that I have been to did not teach me. I have to do it myself. I have to read more books. Then I went through the stage where I realized that I have to be careful what books I read and by whom, because they could also do just as much damage. And I am still a student, I am still learning. As a filmmaker today, I am rethinking: when I first came to film school I wanted to make films about my people, about our history, to educate my people so they could feel proud of who they are, instead of always looking at James Bond and others as a reference. So we could feel proud and celebrate our heritage. That was the idealistic stage that was the first. Now I am at a stage where I say, if I ever dare do a film about Ethiopians, first I have to fill my own void. I have been away from Ethiopia for seventeen years. Whether I like it or not I am a stranger to my own country, and to my own people. A lot has happened in seventeen years. I've never been back. How dare I think about going and making a film about my people when I don't even know the realities that my people face today!
Q: When did you make the deliberate decision to study film?
Lucy: Time became important to me after my mother passed away in 1993. With that came the realization that life was too short and I had to follow my passion. I feel like it is a gift that she gave me before she left. That is when I made the decision to go to film school and pursue my dreams—all my life my mom gave me the utmost support and made me believe that I could do whatever I wanted. Both my parents were very supportive. My father was very big on education and my mother is the one who gave me the strength and independence in being.. I decided to go back to school and study film because up until then it was only a fantasy, a dream that I wanted to pursue, but I didn't think it was practical. Time became very valuable. I realized that it could not be taken for granted and that you have to do what you want to do in this lifetime and that we all have a mission that we have to pursue on a bigger level that is beyond our little world, that we are obliged to do. Sometimes we don't even know. I don't know what my mission is, to be honest with you, but I know that there is a strong sense inside of me that I am doing something that I need to be doing. With the passing of my mother, time became alive. Up until then, it was just another factor in life. It didn't have that much importance. Time and faith became very strong, not necessarily in that order.
Lucy: I chose Howard University because I wanted to be in a black institution. The program teaches you to learn everything; granted you have to do a lot of the learning yourself, you have to teach yourself a lot. The program is designed in such a way that you can be a scriptwriter, a director, a DP [Director of Photography], an editor. You are exposed to all the aspects.
Q: Could you talk about your first film, and your evolution as a filmmaker through this film?
Lucy: Each piece that I've done is a reflection of where I was at that particular time. Emancipation is my baby because it was the first film I made, so it was the beginning of the de-mystification process. Once we talked about Frantz Fanon's theory on liberation. And I said something to the effect that as Ethiopians we have not experienced physical colonization so I didn't think that the theory necessarily applied to us, that it has never happened in the sense of Frantz Fanon’s stages and the notion of assimilation and remembrance.
My Ethiopian-ness has always been an inner feeling that has been a force; it's like a foundation. Though we never took time to learn about our history, the one thing we did learn and heard over and over is that our forefathers won against the Italians in Adwa.
That gave us something, the ability to stand in front of a white person or anyone else, and say "I am." It was a source strength, but I never questioned it. On the other hand, I think there is a duality among Ethiopians as it relates to Frantz Fanon's theory. Whether physically colonized or not, we have in some way been colonized in some form, whether psychological or physical. A lot of damage has been done. During the time of my first film, I was dealing with the issue of identity, which is by the way a recurring theme in my pieces; being in a different world away from home, trying to assimilate and at the same time trying to hold on to our national identity as a people in voluntary exile, is very hard balance to maintain. So, in our homes, a lot of times we surround ourselves with Ethiopian icons, our music, and the way we dress, and
so on. So Emancipation was to me a way of maintaining that balance when it is sometimes impossible. In the film, I used a symbolic way of maintaining it. The protagonist rips up all his Western clothes and puts them on the floor. Then you see him barefoot, dressed in his national attire staring at the camera. For the audio effect I used the static on the radio in the car, all this information, commercials, news, etc. I also used the television, as the remote control flipped images from one channel to the next. It is a representation of all the information one is bombarded with every single day. The bills are there before you get home. They have invaded your home.
Q: So, you have the visual representation of identity and then the notion of consumption, of having things...?
Lucy: That is on the surface. Do you know of the notion of wax and gold called Sem-enna-worq? Sem means wax, worq means gold. In Amharic, there is a style where you may say a sentence on the surface and then there is the sub-text. So, with that style someone says one thing, but only afterwards does the subtext sink in.
That has been one style of the language that has always fascinated me. I try to use that in my films. The bills, television, the radio, are the wax. The gold is the psyche, of how much that information becomes an entrapment. This information becomes a form of slavery. Some of us are here in voluntary exile, as I will call it; whether we want to admit it or not, we are enslaved by the system, by this way of life.
Q: Are these themes indicative of being in exile, or would you say that these themes are also treated in Ethiopia?
Lucy: When I showed Emancipation at the Biograph [a former arts cinema in Washinton DC), a lot of my friends came to see it. They said that they thought that they were seeing their lives on the screen, they could relate to a lot of the symbolism. A friend who came to visit from Ethiopia suggested that I send it to Ethiopia and have it shown on Ethiopian television. Another friend who lives here in the U.S. said that it might do just the opposite of my intentions. He explained that if you think about it, the has a television set[ protagonist in the film] is dressed in a three-piece suit, has a big car, drives on the freeway to a nice building, and returns to a nice house. .Ethiopians in Ethiopia would look at these things and say, "Wow! What a life he has!" Because those who are there, and have stayed there, do not want to hear it when you say, "America is not what you think it is, you're better off staying here. Do something else with your life."
Q: Were you describing your experiences in this film?
Lucy: Yes. I had come to a point when I had finished my undergraduate education in 1984 and got a job in the field of international education I got to a point in my career where I said I will not take a job unless it is related to Africa in some form. I don't know how to explain it. I feel despair when I think of us as Africans in the United States, on the continent, and elsewhere in terms of the power that will never be allowed us. The more I read and learn about Africa, the more I realize how much I don't know. Any African with a consciousness, who has lived and looked at the truth about life and ourselves, must incorporate this in her or his work. Hollywood filmmakers are entertainers, period. European filmmakers consider themselves more artistic. They see it as an art. An African filmmaker, in my opinion, is a political activist, is a social worker, is a educator, is an entertainer, and has to be all of these. I am sure there are some who consider themselves just filmmakers. We have so far to go that we cannot consider ourselves as just artists or just entertainers, because, if we truly want to do something for our people and for the continent, we cannot make that mistake.
Q: And your next film Bag-Age?
Lucy: I still get choked up when I see Bag-Age, because to me it was at a time when I had just lost a good friend who passed away and then two months later I lost my sister. To me it was the manifestation of my own spiritual growth, coming face to face with death and looking at life as a full circle. Bag-Age leads you from birth into life and the last stage in life before we go on to the next stage
Q: And your film Tchebelew continues the theme of identity....
Lucy: Yes. My next film, Tchebelew, has to do again with identity. It is a story about a couple that is struggling to maintain a relationship that has gone bad, but is their only sense of security. Again, they live outside their security blanket. Identity comes up again.Being a foreigner in this country, the question of identity always comes up, whether as a foreign national or as a black person, that notion of identity is always played out and you are always reminded of it. This is good; I think we need to look more into it, because I was not aware of my Ethiopian-ness when I was home. I became more Ethiopian here, more of an African here in this country. I became more aware. I started reading a lot, and felt the void we talked about earlier—about my Ethiopian-ness and African-ness. I am just now filling that void by reading about my history, knowing my culture. So, it is a lot of work.
Q: You will find in many African films this search for identity, this showing of the clashes, the ways that there are tensions between the West, the U.S., European, and African culture.?...
Lucy: Well, I think, in terms of identity, if you are an African with any type of awareness, you cannot help but explore this issue. It is what Frantz Fanon describes in the three stages of development of the decolonization process and it is the same with film and it is the same with everything first, assimilation—thus, naming our neighborhood "Chicago": you identify with the colonizer. Then you go into a stage of melancholy about your own. And the third stage is when you really start being one with yourself and your culture.
Q : The fighting stage!
Lucy: Yeah, it is a fight in the literal sense; it is a psychological fight, which is the most dangerous kind, versus the physical kind. Adwa—its an African victory against the Italians, but, in a way, an easy fight., I am not trying to simplify an important African victory. But, relatively speaking, at that time you were on a set battlefield, you knew who your enemy was. Here, when you are engaged in a cultural fight, you don't know or see your enemy, you don't see a set battlefield, it is everywhere. So you use whatever means you have to contribute to the process of developing your mind. That starts, I think, by beginning to feel good about ourselves, who we are and where we come from. There is no reason why the BBC goes anywhere into Africa and does documentaries about African treasures. Why not us? We have to start doing that because it will never be seen or portrayed in the same way. It is not even about us-against-them , it is not even that. It is about us .taking charge of our own resources, our own treasures, our own God-given riches.
Q: How do you bring your culture, African culture, Ethiopian culture into your work?
Lucy: It is a part of me as a filmmaker, I am a human being first and, as a filmmaker, my being will manifest itself in my work. And all the work that I do, my vision. An added step that I try to take is to ask, "What messages do I want to project to whomever is going to see it?"Culture is an essential component of filmmaking, especially for African filmmakers because we are engaged in a cultural battle, whether we acknowledge it or not. We have to take the initiative as filmmakers, as artists, to promote our culture. And that in turn will hopefully give us our self-worth that has been taken away from us. Maybe then we will start feeling good about who we are, and what we are, and treasure our history and culture.
Q: For whom do African filmmakers make films? Who is your audience?
Lucy: The question that you are asking is the big dilemma. Remember, the last time we talked I told you that before I even attempt to make a film about Ethiopians today, in Ethiopia, I would have to go back first and get reacquainted with the culture and re-immerse myself back into my culture before I can even attempt to do something? At this point, the only thing that I would be comfortable documenting are themes, issues that pertain to Ethiopians here. Because I have lived that reality, I am living that reality. That is what I think I can do, be true to that without being presumptuous. So if I make a film about Ethiopians here, the issues that we face here, I know it will have the effect of my film Emancipation. Ethiopians here related to it, they appreciated it. One thing I'll tell you is this. If I make a film and I want it to be shown in Ethiopia, if it is about us here in the U.S, I’d have to do it in such a way that I know they would understand what I am sayingSome things here you don't have to spell out in order for those who live your reality to understand..They will get it. In Emancipation I showed some envelopes, they knew they were bills, but that is not clear to Ethiopians there, they may think letters. So, I would have to do it differently.
Q: So what are your films about, then? What does an exiled African do? What are her films about?
Lucy: I think Africans in the Diaspora, or I know for me, the three films that I have done, have identity as their major theme, and that is a manifestation of my own sentiments and my own struggle to preserve my identity. I notice this recurring theme, identity. I wrote a script called "The Tractor"; in Amharic it's called Ye Neket Ewket, which,Ye Neket Ewket, which, literally translated, means "knowledge of condescension."The main character, Daniel, truly fits in Fanon's three stages of liberation. The residents of a farm village in the countryside get together to collect money to send him to the city to go to school so that he comes back and hopefully changes their lives. He goes to the United States on a scholarship to study agriculture and comes back home with his diploma, wearing a three-piece suit.
The moral of the story is that we cannot transplant the knowledge that we have gathered from elsewhere and come back and impose it on the people. We have a lot of knowledge to begin with that we have to value; then we take this other knowledge, but filter it first through what applies to our reality, or can help us, but most importantly can co-exist with our own knowledge and values. When I did that script I was very happy and I thought it was an original idea. But then, the more I started reading and talking to other people, I realized that they had the same story: we share something in common—the search for identity.
Q:Do you find that there are issues that are specific to you as an African woman?
Lucy: I'll speak as an African woman living away from home, first. I cannot speak about women living on the continent. When I first came to the States, I embraced feminism; I was on the bandwagon for women's equality. Then during the awakening stage, that was another thing that I started questioning. In the name of feminism a lot of damage is being done back home. It is a very tricky question. Yes, women endure a lot in Africa; they go through a lot more hardships than men. But I don't think Western feminism is the answer. Just like many other things, such as the political situations where it is either capitalism or communism, either the East or West. So it would end up being African women who follow Western feminism. have to start creating solutions for ourselves that match our reality. The same issue goes for the issue of women.
The other day, after seeing Safi Faye in the film Ouaga, I began to realize that it is important to pose the question: "As an African woman filmmaker what do you think?" I think it should be celebrated ,because to be an African woman filmmaker, in Africa or away, is not easy. To begin with, you have to realize that film is not taken seriously. Of course, I am not going to speak for the whole continent, but for Ethiopia. In addition, being a woman, it is not an easy thing. So, I feel being a woman should be emphasized. When I heard Safi Faye say, "As a woman filmmaker," I felt a sense of pride because I know how hard it has been for her.
Q:What role do you see African women filmmakers playing in African cinema?
Lucy: I see African women filmmakers as warriors: they face a lot of obstacles. African filmmakers in general face a lot of obstacles. On other level, African women film maker face a lot .more obstacles I remember seeing a picture of a Kenyan filmmaker, and I feel ashamed not to remember her name, she was behind the camera, she had her baby behind her on her back and she was directing. That was a most powerful image, it has stayed with me. To me that is an African woman filmmaker. They don't have the luxury to disengage their role as a wife or a mother and then become a filmmaker; they have to incorporate everything into that. So to me they are warriors.
Q: Do you think there is, or there need be a woman's aesthetic that is distinctive in her films?
Lucy: I think your style as a filmmaker, your aesthetics, comes from your experience as a human being and even if you happen to be a woman, you are still a human being first. So your experiences through life will come through and that's how your aesthetics or your cinematic signature, I'll say, comes through. I remember having a discussion in class, while looking at a scene and studying the camera movements. They were described as very soft and smooth. Someone said, "That must be a woman cinematographer because she was in tune with the movements and there was a sense of gentleness." I thought, "Wait a minute I know men who are more sensitive than me!" Why do we need to label? I have always resisted categorizing. And it's the same, as it relates to the discussion of women. "A woman is gentler therefore, her camera movements will be gentler"—is that how you are going to know a woman cinematographer from a man? I don't think so! I think we are so busy in the West categorizing everything that we miss the experiences. The essence of a filmmaker, whether it's a woman or a man, is her or his life experience; that is what will come out in the work
Q: Do you feel that as a woman you have a duty to present images of women? Though in your few short films you don't focus on women, per se, you do relay your experiences. Is that what you mean?
Lucy: It is my duty as a human being, as a decent human being. And therefore, my films will reflect that. I will tell you this, and maybe you will have to play this tape for me years from now, but I will never show a rape scene. And if there is a rape scene, there is a way of showing that, or implying that. I will never present my female characters in sex scenes just for the sake of it. So, I will do justice by my gender in that sense, not out of a sense of duty, but because I feel that is the right way to treat a human being: with dignity .
Q: You said that you have not seen Ethiopian films from Ethiopia, but how about African films in general?
Lucy: It was only when I came to Howard University that I saw my first African film, and at the beginning I only saw the films of Ousmane Sembene.
Q : Who are the models for an African filmmaker? What informs her film language, her film aesthetic?
Lucy: I don't believe that you create your own signature by watching others. There are African filmmakers that I respect very highly, but I think that in order to have one's own signature you have to be true and honest with yourself. It has to come from within. It cannot be based on looking at someone else's work. I'll give you a very good example; one of the characteristics of African films is the much slower pacing. My films, without consciously making a decision, are very slow in pace. It's reflective of our way of being.
Q: Well, could you talk about the notion of time in the context of African film?
Lucy: When I think about making a film, I want to present things as they are naturally. African films present that style that I have been talking about. I remember the scene in Harvest 3000 Years (Haile Gerima, 1975) The camera sits in place and the farmer climbs from the bottom to the top of the hill. We see the whole trajectory. I love that scene. It's long and we only see him walking. We are conditioned by Hollywood to think that it should be cut. No! We should see the whole process. I was tired by the time he reached the top; I was tired for him. African films that I have seen so far, they show the time and space in reality, in the present.
Q: Do you see it as important to see Africans as cultural readers, to get the African audience's response?
Lucy: Here in the United States the gauge of whether people like a film or not is the dollar sign, the box office. But you are asking a question where the circumstances are that African filmmakers cannot even show their own films in their own countries, let alone think about how the audience is receiving it. If I am having such a hard time opening the door, I cannot think about where I am going yet. I am concentrating on opening the door. If you imagine the struggle of African filmmakers who make films in Africa, about Africans, for Africans, and they cannot even show their films in their country, then it becomes a luxury to ask what is the audience's reaction, do they or don't they like it. But that is why I am saying that the African filmmaker is not just an entertainer. That is an important thing to keep in mind. When you are thinking about the social welfare of the people, the political situation, education, health issues, all of that, its part of you when you create your piece. It's not just thinking, "Let me put a comedy together and make them laugh." The first step is to get your film shown.
Q:But if there is going to be an evolution in African cinema, a development, a growth, what will it be based on? What will be the point of reference?
Lucy: Cinema is not separate from other aspects of life. It's a valid point. First of all, it's important that the governments intervene. Can we count on this? That's not sure. It has to be part of the infrastructure Those who have a monopoly on distribution are not Africans. When cinema is seen by African societies as part of the culture, versus a foreign thing, I think things will change. Things are not in our hands.Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings recounted a situation that rings so true. Ghana exports bananas. The price of the bananas was dictated to them and they did not accept it. Crates and crates were left at the port and all the bananas were rotten. So they lost a large amount of the crop because Westerners, the buyers, said, "Forget it, we are not buying at that price." Rawlings said, "If I want to buy a Land Rover I have to pay the price that you tell me. I don't have a say. So basically, I don't have a say in what I produce, I don't have a say in what I buy." When I heard that I said, "This is our reality!
Q: So what happens to the vision?
Lucy: You don't give up. My source of strength, one of the reasons that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ousmane Sembene, is that he could have lived in Paris, anywhere in Europe. But he stayed in Senegal, he made films. And when he said, "My films are much more easily shown in France than in Senegal," I could feel the pain in that sentence. But in spite of it all he stuck it out. He stayed there and we need to learn from him.
Q: So do you see it as a mission? It's not like you are going to make a lot of money out of it?
Lucy: Yes, it is an obligation, a duty, if I can at all contribute to that. I don't see any other choices; I don't have any other choices. Money has never been the important factor. Yes, it’s important in getting the film done, but that has never been my motivation, otherwise, I would be trying to knock on Hollywood's door.
Lucy: Teret means "story" in Amharic; it represents an image I envision of little children sitting around an old person who is telling a story. The old person would say teret, teret and the kids would say yelam beret and that is how the storytelling process starts. So, to me, perhaps, it is the feeling of wanting to be a storyteller.
Q: Here we are at FESPACO, give me your impressions, tell me some of your feelings.( The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO)?
Lucy:.I feel blessed to be here, period. It is my first time at FESPACO. I didn't know what to expect because I had never been here, but, from what I see, it is just good to be here and see African films, African faces on the screen, made by African filmmakers, to be around so many African filmmakers. The highlight of my trip was seeing Ousmane Sembene. You know, I told you how excited I was to meet him.
Q:Having been at FESPACO, do you have a more definitive idea about what African cinema is? Have your attitudes been confirmed? Have they changed?
Lucy: To me African cinema is life, and life is African cinema; it is about our life, about our reality. I noticed a lot of African films are based on day-to-day situations, whether traditional or modern, or about Africans who are living in the Western hemisphere. It's about reality. It's not covered up or painted, but life "as is." And it's the interpretation of the artist, the filmmaker, and it's a reflection of their realities. I am more convinced that African cinema is African life.
Q: As a film student, where do you go from here? What impact has FESPACO had on you?
Lucy: Actually, what this has done for me—not only as a film student but as an African film student—it has validated my existence, really, in the true sense of the word. I had a lot of conflicts, if you can remember in previous conversations. Here I am, an African living in the West and I wanted to do films about African reality and yet I don't live in Africa—so how do I reconcile those two?
Anne-Laure Folly, one of the women filmmakers that I talked to, kind of validated my being in the U.S. and the need for me to utilize the knowledge and education I can get there, to help me in my future plans. She kind of removed the guilt factor, because there was a lot of guilt and hesitancy: "How dare I live in the U.S. and just because I have a film degree go back and make a film about my people. When in reality I have been gone for so long I no longer know their reality!" Another thing that it has accomplished is that it has made me decide to go and live in Ethiopia and spend some time, living, getting acquainted with the people, the life and all. Being in Burkina, which is very close to life in Ethiopia, it took me back home. And it made me realize, of course, home is always there.
Q: The notion of home. Is there something about this experience that will have an influence on how you make films or the subjects that you choose?
Lucy: Yes, I was very intense that African films have to be about messages, issues, struggles and I still believe that; but I also feel that there is room for comedy, there is room for all kinds of emotions. To make people laugh—that is an accomplishment by itself. I saw Taafe Fanga yesterday and it was beautiful, it was funny. The beauty I find in African cinema is the use of metaphors; and we use it on the screen. It is a comedy, but the issues were still there. It made me a little bit—not less serious, I am still serious about addressing the issues—but it made me realize that there is room for all types of films within the African cinema context.
Q: You are here with film students from Howard University, largely made up of African diasporas from the United States. What importance do you see for African diasporas film students to attend FESPACO?
Lucy: .It depends on the individual, but if I could give my advice, I would reiterate something that was said recently. We just had an interview with Ben Beye from Senegal. And I asked him did he have any advice for African American film students and he said: "Number One, I advise them to come to Africa, they are always welcome."Because for African Americans in the States, I believe, who have not experienced Africa, it is just a picture in their minds, and who knows what that picture is. That picture is not drawn by Africans; it is drawn by the West. It is very important, especially as a filmmaker, so that the stereotypes about Africa and Africans are shed, it is so important to come to Africa and experience it. So, I think this is a very important trip. But I go back to what I said at first; it depends on the individual. If someone is not open to it, someone can come to Africa and stay ten years; it won't make a difference. So there must be openness and a willingness to know and seek new worlds, and tolerance.
Q: Were actually on location during the shooting of your fourth short film, Weti's Poem. Could you talk about this film?
Lucy: This piece means a lot to me on different levels. One, it was inspired by a poem called "Sadness" written by Weti Enkenelesh Solomon; she is twelve-years old. The moment that I heard the words I had no choice but to do something; they are very powerful, very deep, the words. Also my sentiments are that with children we have a tendency to dismiss them or not to take them seriously, but they have some very powerful ways of expressing themselves, whether it be through writing, or art, etc., and they must be given a chance to excel in that. On a second level, cinematically I feel like I just reached a higher level: I am really starting to dare.
After being away for 18 years I went home to visit my country, my people, my family I went back to visit my
home people, my family .little did I know I went back to revisit myself.
