‘A Lot Like You’ Film Review
Tue, 03/13/2012 – 12:28pm | by ericroache
When reviewing a film, one of the key measures of quality to us here at Art With Impact is the ability of the film to inspire action in the viewer. By that standard, as well as any other traditional standards, the new documentary “A Lot Like You” screening at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival today (9:20 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas) is a resounding success. It inspired me to start telling friends about it and thinking of how else I can help get the word out as soon as I finished watching it. It inspired important members of a community in Tanzania to take a difficult look at their culture and certain traditional practices which have devastating effects on their people and start thinking about how to change. It is the essence of what we look for here at Art With Impact, and it is the type of art that is going to move us all closer as a global community: a personal story told in a moving way which frames larger social issues that need to be brought to light and acted upon.
“What am I?” How do you answer this question as a parent of a mixed-race child trying to understand their place in the world and how they are different from the other children in their school or neighborhood? It is a question Eliaichi Kimaro, who is the filmmaker and subject of “A Lot Like You”, dealt with herself as a child, and it is the question that prompted her to decide that if she was going to marry her white American partner and have children of her own, she needed to get a better understanding of her roots to pass onto to her children. Eliaichi is the daughter of a Tanzanian father and a Korean mother. Growing up, she was surrounded by her mother’s family, and never had trouble connecting with her Korean heritage. It was her father’s side of the family, and the isolated feeling she had spending summers in Tanzania as a child, that spurred a need within her to travel to Tanzania with her parents, her partner, and a camera to document her discoveries. Continue reading →
A LOT LIKE YOU … is powerful and heart-warming, telling several stories at once, and all of them well: the story of her Tanzanian father’s leaving his Chagga tribal roots, coming to America and marrying her Korean mother; a story from Tanzanian Independence; the story of her parents’ amazing lives together; the story of her father’s family, particularly his sisters, and the difficulties they endured; and her own long-secret story of abuse which led her to become a trauma counselor.
All these stories are finally woven together in a womb-like, circular Chagga hut, a replica of her father’s family home that he has rebuilt in honor of family and memory. There is only one way in and out of this womb – one feels it is the path of relating, remembering and holding memory across the generations, a thread and tie made secure by the active work of the director, and now passed to us, the audience, in the womb of a darkened theater.
~You can read Ravi’s 3/12 follow up review+interview with director E. Kimaro here.~
The documentary A Lot Like Youbegins with an image of the filmmaker Eliaichi Kimaro’s daughter, Lucy, with Kimaro wondering in voiceover how she will answer the inevitable question of mixed-race children: “What am I, Mama?” A viewer might expect that such a question will result in a film that celebrates Kimaro’s cultural background; what they may not expect is one that reveals and confronts a history of violence, sexual abuse, and intergenerational trauma.
The daughter of a Tanzanian father—a member of the Chagga tribe—and a Korean mother, raised along with her brother in a suburb of Washington, DC, Kimaro describes feeling like she never fit in with either African-American or Korean-American communities. She began the film project in search of her own cultural history—“the roots of [her] blackness”— and it’s during a family trip to Tanzania to learn more about her father’s tribe that she discovers the surprising and unnerving connection to the women in her family that propels the riveting film. Continue reading →
A Lot Like You will be screening on March 28, 29, and 30th as part of Cleveland International Film Festival.
(tickets go on sale 3/9)
As we mentioned earlier, thanks to CIFF being the sole recipient of a grant from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, they are able to focus on filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities, highlighting their stories and contributions to the world of film. This year’s focus is on filmmakers from the African diaspora. And so thanks to this generous grant from “The Academy”, our festival travel and lodging is being covered by CIFF!
And as if that wasn’t sweet enough ~ they are screening our film as part of their “Standing Up” competition (cash prize of $5,000–with the winner being determined by audience vote). Please read on for a description of this category and the story of its namesake… Continue reading →
Last night, Moshi folks turned up in droves to see your movie, surprising everyone, even to those who organized the event. There was a gang of 20 that turned up from our neighbor village of Marangu. They rented a car to come. Obviously the word had gotten around.
Marangu gang
I was asked to kick the event off without introduction by anyone. So when I confessed to the audience that the only reason I was standing in front them is because I am the filmmaker’s mother, I got a chuckle and an ovation from the audience.
people waiting to go in
I sat in the back and from behind, I could see that the people were breathing with the film. Those in the back chose to stand so they could see the subtitles and watched the film to the end on their feet.
They stood to see better.
There was a technical hitch toward the end. I was playing a DVD that was brand new…but it was damaged, perhaps due to careless handling. It stopped close to the end — after auntie Awonyisa’s story. So they didn’t miss much. Still, that was quite regretful.
As in the U.S., some folks told me that they cried while watching the movie. People were so eager to come and exchange few words and connect afterwards.
A medical doctor from the Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, wants to connect with you. She would like to get a copy of the DVD and also send you one she made on women with HIV in Tanzania. She was delighted to hear that you accept invitations to college campuses and give talks after showing the film.
Moshi Club volunteered to sell your DVD on our behalf. They want to contact folks in Arusha so that we can show it there. Let’s see where this enthusiasm will lead!
Admissions fee was 3,000 shillings per person. They collected 318,000 shillings (~$205 USD) for the Girls’ Dormitory Project. That, I will hand over to Vunjo School when I see Reverand Mlay next.
When I was up front, I told the audience that you were eager to see/hear how the viewing was going, so I got their permission to take a photo facing them straight. Folks were really good-hearted about it. Some even waved at the camera.
the audience
I think your film is teaching people a lot — how coming out in the open can bring peace, but also be the source of strength. You don’t just heal. You become stronger.
Help us spread the word!! The 30th Annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival officially launched their festival with a press conference this evening, and by going live with their beautiful new website!! SFIAAFF is the nation’s largest showcase for new Asian American and Asian films, annually presenting approximately 130 works in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose.
We’re excited to announce that A Lot Like You is scheduled for two screenings: Sunday, March 11, 7:20 PM at the San Francisco Film Society, and Tuesday, March 13, 9:20 PM at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in San Francisco.
Tickets go on sale Feb 13. You can check out our movie page and purchase your tickets here!
And I must admit, I love what Michella Rivera-Gravage has done with our synopsis:
Social worker and activist Eliaichi Kimaro is a mixedrace, first-generation American with a Tanzanian father and Korean mother. When her retired father and mother move back to Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, Kimaro decides to document her father’s path back to his family and Chagga culture. In the process, she struggles with her own relationship to Tanzania, and learns more deeply about the heritage that she took for granted as a child. Yet as she talks to more family members, especially her aunts, she uncovers a cycle of violence that resonates with her work and life in the United States. When Kimaro speaks with her parents about the oppression that her aunts face, she faces a jarring disconnect between immigrant generations on questions of misogyny, patriarchy, and violence.
“One reason this film works,” notes Tikkun Magazine, “ is that Kimaro situates her own personal family history within a social, historical, and political context of African decolonization, transnational relations, race, class, and gender politics.”
With poignant personal reflection and an engaging visual style, A Lot Like You draws the viewer into a journey that is filled with rich, multifaceted stories and history. “A moving personal essay on family and diversity” (Seattle Weekly), the film evocatively examines the intricate fabric of multiracial identity, and grapples with the complex ties that children of immigrants have to the lands and cultures of their parents.
At this moment, it looks like ALLY’s production team (Eric, Pete, Tom and myself) are all seriously considering flying in for this festival. It’s a Biggie!!!
I have been invited to screen our film and deliver a keynote as part of Black History/Heritage Month at University of Arizona (Tucson). Here’s the description from the event’s facebook page, brought to you by the event organizer, April Petillo:
Eliaichi Kimaro is a activist, speaker and advocate who has dedicated her talents to ending violence–especially gendered and intimate partner violence–by placing the experiences of marginalized and oppressed people at the center of the conversation. But first, she was a little girl with a journal, lots of ideas and an active imagination.
After over a decade of community organizing and grassroots work in both the metropolitan areas of Washington, DC and Seattle, Washington, Ms. Kimaro took her activism to a wider audience by merging her beliefs, experiences and creativity in the medium of film.
Now an award winning documentary filmmaker, Ms. Kimaro will engage the UA community in discussion about the important connections between creative expression and experience in strategically re-centering conversations around ethnicity, identity, cultural identity, accountability and justice.
This is a University of Arizona Black History/Heritage Month event sponsored by the African American Student Affairs programming Board.
The keynote will take place on Feb 20 @ 5:30 at University of Arizona, Catalina Room in the Student Union Building.
The film screening will take place on Feb 21 @ 5:30 at the Gallagher Theater (1303 E University Bvld, Tucson, AZ 85719.) Q&A with Director to follow.
We hope to see you at one (or both) of these events!!
Mr. Shah congratulated me on the feature article in The Citizen* even before we had gotten our newspaper. So, Baba and I went helter skelter to buy ourselves two copies. We wondered who on earth might have written without us knowing a thing about it.
The poster for the movie features more than a quarter of the page and they reprinted Tyrone’s article. Together with it are 6 other pictures. My goodness!
This is the second time I am reading the article. It is so well done. Hongera to Tyrone. He really has his heart in it.
Love, Mom
p.s. I love the photo of the ‘united nations’ family.
our feature in the Seattle Timeshits newsstands today, and we couldn’t be more grateful for this beautifully written, in-depth article from Tyrone Beason.
if you’re viewing it online, be sure to scroll through the pictures.
and if you happen to be in Seattle…might we say, it’s definitely worth seeing this layout in print…
a Dad-ism: a good farmer keeps his eyes focused forward on the work that remains to be done. a poor farmer keeps looking back, praising himself for how much he’s already done.
when ALLY’s creative team met earlier this month, we realized that we had outgrown the usefulness of our previous website. beautiful though she was, the site was best suited to tell the “making of” story of our film.
but now that we have a finished film, our goals are shifting. we need a website that’s expansive and dynamic enough to encompass our outreach & engagement campaign, of which our film will be one part.
to help us develop and implement this campaign, we have enlisted the help of Working Films who specialize in linking non-fiction films with cutting edge activism. we are also collaborating with Bridgit Antoinette Evans whose organization, Fuel | We Power Change, helps non-profit organizations reach wider audiences through partnerships, campaigns, and creative productions developed in collaboration with high profile artists.
so this landing page is our foundation stone for a website where people can:
– connect with activists, educators, and organizations working on the issues in our film
– reflect and engage with each other and with the filmmaking team directly.
– and of course, learn more about our ever-evolving film journey…
our thanks to Josh Tuininga and his creative team at The Mediumwho designed and developed this web page in record time. i look forward to seeing what we come up with in the months ahead!
