As many of you know, we really struggled to come up with a title for our film. The journey from Worlds Apart to A Lot Like You reflects our own process of peeling back the layers to reveal the true story of our film. And in that time, we actually considered 50different titles…
Worlds Apart
Marginal View
The View from the Margin
From the margin
Untethered
(Hybrid Vigor)
A Home Indefinable
An Idea of Home
Blending Worlds
Home Connections
Linking Homes
A Visitor at Home
Home Leave
Unearthing Home
A Sort of Homecoming
(Home Squared)
As good as home
My Chagga lens
My Tanzania
Homeland Insecurity
Mom and Dad’s water development project in our village of Mwika will be featured in an upcoming PBS documentary called Drops of Hope.
They recently met with Emmy-Award winning filmmakers Kris Koenig and Anita Ingrao who were shooting a documentary that critically examines “volunteerism and service in Tanzania, and the efforts to establish permanent sources and storage of water in this impoverished country.”
Also featured in this documentary is Chico attorney Ron Reed, a public defender who first visited Tanzania in 2004 and saw how “people were drinking contaminated water from swamps and mud holes, that women and children were carrying 5-gallon buckets, often on their heads, 3 or 4 miles a day.” He left Tanzania feeling inspired to learn all he could about the fundamentals of water drilling, and to investigate how lightweight well-drilling rigs could be affordably shipped to East Africa.
Reed now travels to Kilolo 4-5 times a year, occasionally accompanied by a well-drilling rig. He started a vocational school to teach women and men how to drill wells. Thus far, the “Kilolo Star Well Drillers have completed 64 wells and expect to drill 50 wells a year for the next four years. Our goal is to teach people to build the rigs themselves and go to other villages and drill wells.”
In a world where 50% of all water projects fail in the first few years, this filmmaking team will be examining the ins and outs of these two independently successful water programs in Tanzania.
The undeniable gift of A Lot Like You is its power to ignite dialogue and inspire deep introspection. This film invites us all to reflect on the complexity of loving people through pain, secrets and differences.
Over the past 8 years, we discovered a surprising paradox—the more personal, honest and vulnerable we got in our storytelling, the more universal our story became. The themes and issues that surface throughout our film (sexual violence, child abuse, intergenerational trauma, mixed race/multicultural identities, female genital cutting, first generation American experiences, etc…)–these are just the particulars of my own personal journey. But ALLY is about exploring who we are and how we decide what to pass on to the next generation.
This film is calling out the truth in all of us. Believe me, that is not a humble brag. It would be if this had been my intention all along. But when this film pulled the truth out of me, I was kicking and screaming.
And yet truth that is never spoken can never be known and will never lead to change. People connect through story…it’s in our nature. And what I’m finding is that truth begets truth. It’s a ripple effect. And it’s contagious. It happened to each of us as we were working on this film. And it’s happening now as we move the film out into the world. Continue reading →
March 8th marks the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the achievements of women past, present and future. Hundreds of events occur not just on this day but throughout March to mark the economic, political and social accomplishments of women.
In New York, there will be the 2nd Annual Women in the World Summit, a three-day gathering of female leaders and activists from all over the world, all of whom are doing everything in their power to create change for women around the world.
Please click here check out this phenomenal panel discussion on Charlie Rose with Zainab Salbi (Founder/CEO, Women for Women International,) Tina Brown (journalist, former editor of the New Yorker and Vanity Fair), and Dina Powell (President, Goldman Sachs Foundation and global head of Corporate Engagement.)
A small-share farmers’ organization in Tanzania, MVIWATA, is taking a stand against domestic violence, sexual harassment, genital mutilation, women being deprived of food and water, forced into early marriage by rape.
In Tanzania, 80 percent of rural people living in extreme poverty are women. Women farmers are subjected to acute social and economic exclusion and oppression. That is why MVIWATA has decided to mobilize against all forms of discrimination, and work towards building a society based on equality and justice.
The Droge & Summers Blend song “Two of the Lucky Ones” — that was featured in Zombieland, and appears (in a modified version) in ALLY — has just been nominated for an Independent Music Award.
Lana Bandoim highlights A Lot Like You at this year’s San Diego Black Film Festival…
The San Diego Black Film Festival had a full schedule of movies. One of the most interesting documentary features was “A Lot Like You.” This film has not been released, but we were able to see it at the San Diego festival. It was directed by Eliaichi Kimaro, and it is her personal story. She details her life with her Korean mother and Tanzanian father. She returns to Mt. Kilimanjaro with her father and begins to uncover details of her family’s past. Eliaichi Kimaro discovers shocking stories of abuse that change her perception and make her question her identity.
Hey PacNW folks! Our musicman, Pete Droge, will be featured on Evening Magazine tonight (KING5 @ 7pm) talking about the art of marrying music to picture. Set your DVR’s, and keep your ears peeled for mention of A Lot Like You… 🙂
This Sunday, February 6 is the UN Sanctioned International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.
On February 6, 2003, Stella Obasanjo, the First Lady of Nigeria, officially declared “Zero Tolerance to FGM” in African during a conference organized by the InterAfrican Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children.
The UN Subcommission on Human Rights adopted this day as an international awareness day to make the world aware of the issue of female genital cutting and to “promote its eradication.”
The World Health Organization estimates that “100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM.” Girls who are cut face the risk of “severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications and newborn deaths.”
But in recent years, an increasing number of affected communities and families are taking action and calling for change. Here’s a painful, informative, inspiring story about one woman who’s choosing to carve out a new path…from last year’s Vanguard series:
I promise to write more extensively on FGM/C in the future, and will build on the resource links to organizations/individuals who are working to address female genital mutilation/cutting…
