Amil Shivji and Kijiweni Productions are not new names here at Vijana FM. We’ve interviewed this film maker and his company a few times in the past. Keeping up with our tradition, we sent him five questions regarding an upcoming film, Aisha (trailer below), which is co-produced by Kijiweni Productions and Uzikwasa.
1. Where was the idea born?
Dr. Vera Pieroth and I met in town on March 12th 2014 over a cup of coffee. Dr. Pieroth had been trying to raise funds for a new film project, a third in Uzikwasa’s series of gender-based violence films. She said she was working on this idea for a couple of years but had not yet garnered enough funding to make it a reality.
Uzikwasa which stands for Uzima Kwa Sanaa, is a local NGO based in Pangani, Tanga doing grassroots community work with the people of that area. I was in the pre-production stage for Samaki Mchangani when I met Dr. Pieroth and too much clouded my mind at that moment. We agreed to meet later in May after she had seen my previous work and I had some free time. Knowing my doubts around mainstream NGO agendas in Tanzania she invited me to Pangani to witness first hand the work that Uzikwasa was doing.
In July, I visited Pangani and was not only struck by the serene beauty of the place but also with the close, family-like interaction between the community and Uzikwasa. True community work that was making a material and ideological difference in peoples’ lives. This is when I knew that we would be collaborating on a film together.
After discussing ideas, the scriptwriter and myself spent two weeks in Pangani researching alongside Uzikwasa’s team to build a solid foundation in our understanding of the space and people. Luckily, both of us are from the coastal region, which made our connection and understanding much easier. After four plot ideas, together we decided to go with Aisha.
2. Kijiweni Productions challenges some of society’s deepest customs, if we may: Notions of authority in Shoeshine, and protection of power in Samaki Mchangani. What kind of challenge can we expect in Aisha?
Aisha challenges a lot, in particular our patriarchal chauvinist society that exists as the status quo regardless of urban or rural settings. The camera places the female characters at centre frame and offers powerful personalities that struggle to claim their spaces in a community that offers them none.
It is always too easy to put out stereotypes, especially of women in Tanzania. In Tanzanian mainstream cinema we see two extremes of female characters. The submissive, love-lorned, oppressed damsel in distress versus the domineering, evil, on-the-verge of crazy witch who, by the way may or may not have superpowers. For those who prefer simple archetypes, then sure, but why create characters that leave women as an object of one dimensionality? Why perpetrate society’s oppressive male gaze?
Cinema should always challenge society, reflect and magnify its prejudices and blemishes. I believe Aisha does that.
3. We’ve seen the trailer, and can’t help thinking about differences between Tanzanian culture and the world. What would you say is unique about our culture that the film highlights?
No culture, including that of Tanzania is homogenous. All cultures do have internal struggles, sites of conflict and agents of change.
In Aisha we witness a social resistance to patriarchy. In a male dominated world, women are born into a culture of struggle. The head-scarfed village women of Pangani constantly stand up for their dignity in what would be naively considered an oppressive Muslim region along the coast.
4. This is Kijiweni Productions’ first co-produced film in Tanzania: How and why did you split the roles?
Well Uzikwasa are the executive producers of the film, fully financing it through funds they raised and owning full rights to it. Kijiweni Productions produced the film, bringing in crew, casting for it and dealing with postproduction.
We have also been helping with marketing and promotion of the film since we have experience in the city with this. With every step we took we needed approval from the executive producers, which can be cumbersome especially in the postproduction phase, but we understood it as necessary since Aisha is much more than a creative work. It is also a tool for social awareness that will be used by this and many other gender advocacy groups.
Creativity is often stifled in collaborations like these but when both parties regard creativity as the backbone of the struggle against the norm then the impossible is a script away.
5. Would you recommend a collaborative approach to film making in Tanzania? Why or why not?
I definitely recommend a collaborative approach to filmmaking. First thing, it’s hard to make movies. I think filmmaking might be the most collaborative form of work out there. You have to work with other people; there is no question about it. The financial, technical and moral support is immeasurable. In a country where we lack a formal industry and structures that could support us as artists, we have to work together in order to hold up and build on the little concrete that shall one day be the fine grain to a cinematic palace.
However, collaboration can only be successful if the collaborators are on the same page. No artist has the same approach and the same art, that being said you can imagine the inevitable clashes that will exist in collaborations. But it is precisely through these conflicts do we synthesize greater ideas. Choose your collaborators wisely.
Aisha will be playing from 2nd to 8th October 2015, at 7pm at the Mlimani City Cinema. Vijana FM thanks Kijiweni Productions and Uzikwasa for their time!
Further reading:
Will there be other showings after the 8th?
Hi Jack,
It all depends on different institutions and organizations that would be interested in showing it.