A unique presentation of the Africa Diaspora

1. What was the Inspiration of the film?

To hear different voices from the Diaspora express themselves with their authentic voices. Black people in the UK don’t often get their voice heard on a mainstream level or express where they originate from and what it’s like there, So the idea of hearing different voices from Africans around the planet informing myself and others about their stories was inspiring. Other inspiration for the project came from my tenure as artist-in-residence for literature & multimedia for the Africa ‘05 Festival (held throughout 2005, Africa ’05 was the largest celebration of African Art & Culture ever organised in Britain). The artist-in-residence program was created by Ameena McConnell of Creative Fruits.

2. How did you select who to reach out to – to be involved in the documentary and why?

During the Africa 05 season I met a large number of the people that feature in the film. I started making invites at events during the season that encompassed a varied selection of people.

3. Something that really comes out through the documentary is that there is such a variance in the voices coming from different parts of the Diaspora as people share their experiences. How did you manage to do this and keep such a strongly cohesive story-line?

Once the interviews were completed I had to look at the art of documentary making. I had a mentor for the project who recommended for me to watch certain documentary’s to provide more of an insight of how I could create something cohesive from the collage of voices I had captured.

I could see I was missing stock footage (historical footage) to fill around the interviews. I filmed different activities that people of African descent were doing in the UK. I also found fantastic photographic pictures from the 1950’s captured by the photographer James Barnor (a prolific Ghanaian photo-journalist who’s work spans over 60 years). He allowed me to use some of these images. I did further research to find images from other sections of the Diaspora to use. In the end I and my Creative Director Daniel Fenton, decided stylistically to stick with the interviews, images and photo’s. This helped to keep the story cohesive.

4. What was the most difficult part to putting the documentary together?

The different skill sets to pull together. At the beginning of the project there was no funding except for the camera and DV tapes, so I knew I had a challenge to find a quality Editor, audio recording facilities, additional animation material, music and art work to pull together. Not having the funding but still needing to bring on people with the high levels of professional skill the film deserved was a task!


5. Is there a key message you want people to have from watching this documentary and if so what is it?

A) Hopefully people get inspired by the film and create their own films about themselves, their cultures and what they are about and express it to the world.

b) For people to realise that people of African ancestry are very diverse with different cultures, practices, languages and all that this entails.

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