You could be a writer who just writes, misinforming a whole country, in polished fonts. Such a writer paired up with a skilled filmmaker short of integrity? Wow! What a perfectly matched nightmare! No truth will ever be uncovered. It is for this reason that I am in total agreement with what Noel Kok, the co-founder of NEWF, says all the time: "if you want to change the story, change the storyteller!"
As per Noel's famous words, changing storytellers' perceptions and equipping them with skills and gear will definitely change the story. That is essentially what NEWF does. Nature, Environment, Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF was founded in 2017, with the ‘Africa Refocused’ program coming to birth in 2022, in collaboration with National Geographic Society. In all these years, not only had they NEVER held a storytelling and cinematography lab at the same time; but also they had never held a lab in Lamu!Â
Finally it was decided; the first NEWF Storytelling & Cinematography Lab ever was set to take place in Lamu, and the film would first be screened at the Bahari Yetu Festival, 2024! The aim of this particular lab was to equip young people with the aforementioned skills and enable them to tell the story of Lamu and East Africa at large. Applicants registered their interests, and prospect fellows were selected by the end of August.
Meet The Fellows!
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Cinematography & Storytelling Sessions
We started with online classes that were initially dominated with awkward moments of silence. After the first two sessions, we were well acquainted and our mentors threw us into the deep end of work. We were required to write the synopsis of a story that would highlight any issue in Lamu that is a threat to marine health, and include a clear, filmable call-to-action. We were also to visit the shoot locations, and develop a structured shot-list. My colleagues and I formed a student WhatsApp group where we would subdivide roles amongst ourselves, and rant when the going got tough. I took the scriptwriting role because my hands itch to talk.
The first draft of the script was me telling myself the story, with Samira Vera~Cruz, who is a whole world of film trapped in a person, virtually watching over my shoulders. She would say ‘if it can be thought, it can be written; if it can be written, it can be filmed!’ Samira taught me so much, I started wondering if I knew anything film-related at all before meeting her genius self.
My fellow mentees were busy scouting shoot locations, creating a viable shot-list and getting film characters. This is when we met multitalented Rafita from Anidan Children's Home, who played the role of the 'Kababa' in our short film. Coincidentally, turtles nested around that time, and since the story's concluding scene was that of turtles nesting, we filmed them before our mentors landed in Lamu. Talk of stars aligning!
On concluding the online classes, it quickly dawned on us why there was so much talk around conducting a NEWF Lab covering storytelling and cinematography, simultaneously! There was still so much work ahead that we dreaded the physical meetup. Elke Korschen encouragingly revealed to us the opportunities awaiting once we became NEWF Fellows, and that psyched us up! Which sane islander would dream of missing out on NEWF's Ocean Access Labs?
On 3rd October, our mentors arrived in Lamu Island; it was show time! As mentors approached the island from the airport, Samira saw a boat named ‘Samira’ and she went nuts! It was beautiful to see.Â
That evening, we all met up at Naima’s House - Shela, the spacious neat home that sponsored this project’s accommodation. It was a bonding moment of them telling us their NEWF story, showing us the films they've done before and officially giving us NEWF merchandise. They had won my heart at this point. After a sumptuous dinner, it was agreed that we would meet at 5:30AM by the Peponi Hotel beach the next day for a sunrise timelapse shoot. 5:30AM, What??
There we were, at the crack of dawn, setting up the Canon R560. I was so excited, I moved around and walked into the timelapse shot, ruining it. Yep, Carlos Noronha almost swallowed me whole because the executive producer and director of photography in him could not understand how I could get so carried away! We then proceeded to spend the whole morning visiting shoot locations and updating the shot-list. I had never done a shoot reconnaissance before; I was used to shooting immediately I get to the location. With NEWF, however, you have to predict possible challenges prior, in order to spend minimum time possible shooting.Â
We were ready! With a well structured shot-list, we proceeded to have a nerve-wracking experience for the four days and nights that followed. The best way to excel is through pain and experience; Carlos made sure of it! His artistic expressions of picture angles confirmed to me that some people are artists, and yet some are the art themselves! During our well-deserved breaks, Carlos would remind us that film-making is a chance to live many lifetimes so pick up that camera and record something; do it scared!
Our first film, Ntanga, was coming together so nicely, we almost started celebrating. Sam Thuku, our extraordinary mentor in film editing was the bearer of the disheartening news; ‘I hope you are happy because one of you is an editor. Otherwise the work hasn’t begun yet!’ Of course editing experience on CapCut and TikTok doesn’t count! We had 2 days to learn the DaVinci Software from scratch and edit the whole film. Faraj Mohamed is God-sent! The guy grasped everything so fast, and for the nights that followed he was glued to that chair, editing mercilessly! It was painful to watch some scenes being cut out after all we’d been through.Â
By the time Ntanga was out, everybody had learnt something new about themselves, and each other. It was time to show our 6-minute film to the community at Bahari Yetu Festival, 2024. My mind was racing with thoughts. Will they get the message? Will they own the story? Will they like it? I was eager to see all that! Unfortunately, I saw none of it because my eyes were clouded with joyful tears. We did it! We made a film and our names were in the credits section!!Â
One of our community leaders was so concerned about the film subject. Should the government take action? People thought deeply about the message in Ntanga because when facts fail to convince, storytelling may do the trick!
We needed a break. Thankfully, Lamu is a holiday destination! In her true good vibes fashion, Elke organized a sunset dhow sail for us to unwind and toast to a job well done. We were meant to relax and calm our nerves; but no. Not Carlos! He couldn't keep calm with such beautiful scenery! He took pictures of everything, and even had the dhow captain take shots of us from the bird-eye angle. Our mentors could not understand why we had not included these sceneries in our film; but Lamu is so beautiful, you cannot capture all that in a short film! Besides, what would make NEWF come back to Lamu if we revealed all our gems in one go?
If you ask me, the best way to mask emotions at a goodbye session is to keep everyone well fed and entertained. Also, don't ask me because that did not work here; our goodbye dinner was emotional. Us meeting in Lamu at the exact season that we did felt like it was cast in stone long before we were born; felt so right! Samira taught me how to use a pen as the tongue of my mind, Carlos taught me how to take shots and Thuku effortlessly summoned order amidst chaos. The east remembers.Â
Written By Evelyn Kimori
Shots by Evelyn Kimori, Elke Korschen, Sam Thuku, Carlos Noronha & Captain Yaseer.
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