Intro by National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC):
Oftentimes, we think of impact as something that is measured subsequent to an event or intervention of significance. But Eliaichi Kimaro suggests, in this artsENGAGE post, that impact is also valuable research for designing that particular intervention.
Eli is the director of the documentary film A Lot Like You. In this post, she describes the process of designing the A Lot Like You (ALLY) Project, the interactive and engagement components of the film’s outreach. This campaign aims to partner with nonprofits and educational institutions to explore issues of identity and belonging, and the role of storytelling in encouraging those difficult conversations. To design this campaign, the ALLY team has been gauging impact by inviting audiences to share their personal experiences of the film so as to best harness its potential to generate forward-thinking conversation. To read some of the personal reflections audience members have shared after viewing the film, visit the ALLY Flickr stream here.
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photo by Pete Droge
by Eliaichi Kimaro Feature Blogger National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture
As a first-time filmmaker, my learning curve over the past 10 years has been steep! Our film, A Lot Like You, explores the lens we all bring to the story of our lives–the stories we inherit, and the stories we pass down about who we are and where we come from.
During our 10-year film journey, the popularity of documentaries soared while the US economy collapsed. Many funding resources dried up. And the few remaining funders were looking to fund films that exposed injustice and inspired people to take concrete, measurable action. And so we saw a surge in the number of engaging, informative single-issue docs that came complete with a clearly-defined call to action.
By comparison, my film offered none of these things. In addition to being a novice filmmaker, I am a queer, mixed-race daughter of immigrants making a personal film about my family on Mt. Kilimanjaro. No one famous. Just people.
Our story also cuts across multiple issues. Over the course of the film, we witness how our experiences of family, culture, class, race, gender and trauma all play a role in shaping our sense of identity and belonging. We had to resist considerable pressure to simplify our story. And we had no way of predicting, let alone measuring, the film’s eventual social impact.
A Lot Like You premiered at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival, and has been on the festival, campus and conference circuit ever since. Over the past 2 years, we’ve come to discover that the undeniable gift of A Lot Like You is its power to ignite dialogue and inspire deep introspection.
The ripple effect of truth telling that begins on the screen carries through to our post-screening conversations. And the change these conversations bring about can be truly profound and long-lasting. Continue reading →
by Anna Goren ALLY Outreach/Engagement Intern & Guest Blogger National Alliance of Media Arts & Culture (View post on #artsENGAGE Tumblr Blog)
Though I’m young enough to pass as a digital native, I’m old enough to remember a quiet time before there was facebook.
I remember well my first, naïve foray into the vast expanses of the internet, before I knew just how deeply it would change our world. When our family finally signed up for AOL, I remember meeting up with my friends at lunchtime and whispering excitedly about our plans to meet on instant messager later that evening. I would rush to the living room after dinner and wait impatiently for the neolithic, sputtering sounds of dialup to finish on our HP Pavilion, so that I could make my virtual date.
I remember one evening my dad looking over from the couch, puzzled at the unfamiliar sounds of internet chatter, asking what we had to talk about, given that we spent all day together.
The truth was — very little. We had at least two breaks and recess to catch up in person that day, and knew with confidence we would see each other at eight thirty the next morning, as we did each morning of the fourth grade. We were so smitten with the internet, that the content of our conversations fell second to the novelty of mode and mechanism.
My dad, who still hunts and pecks at his keyboard with one index finger, asked a question that day that foreshadowed many of the fears that would unravel around the rapid connectedness that the digital age has brought. Continue reading →
Filmmaker Eliaichi Kimaro’s intensely personal documentary grew from a desire to explore her roots. Born to a Tanzanian father and Korean mother, but raised in America, Elaichi felt trapped between cultures, truly belonging to none. In an attempt to connect with and understand her heritage, she decided to travel with her parents to visit her father’s tribe in the Mt. Kilimanjaro region of Africa. She hoped to gather enough material to make a film out of her experiences.
Her film didn’t turn out exactly that way she’d envisioned. When she arrives in Tanzania, she finds herself kept at a distance by her father’s family, until one day when she approaches her aunts to talk about their lives, and they open up to her in a way that they never had with anyone before. They speak of a culture’s subjugation of women, of female circumcision and forced marriages. Kimaro’s sudden connection to the women is deepened by her own background of abuse. A powerful and thought-provoking film exploration of identity and conflicts of culture, her film emerges as one of the highlights of this year’s festival.
This film moved me in a powerful way because not only do the experiences that Eli went through ring true for me, but also many of my friends and family members. Through this sort of medium (film/art), it helps making important issues such as identity, rape, abuse, etc. easier to talk about.
This was a really powerful film. As a mixed person myself, who has always struggled with the idea of “home”, this brought up a lot of feelings I can relate to. Thank you for your art and vulnerability. Mad respect.
Many thanks to our friends at Jade Magazine (March/April 2013 issue) for taking the time to talk with us about our film journey.
When Eli Kimaro set out to make her first film, little did she know how different it would turn out from her initial idea of capturing her father’s return to Tanzania and their Chagga cultural heritage. A Lot Like You, the resulting award-winning film, covers so much more, including gender violence and race. Eli was kind of enough to take time to answer a few of our questions.
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Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like?
I’m a mixed, 1st generation American — Mom is from South Korea, Dad is from Tanzania. We grew up in Rockville, MD–the ‘burbs of DC. Most of Mom’s siblings also settled in the DC area, so we spent all our holidays, birthdays, and just about every weekend in between with the Korean side of my family.
Dad was the only one of his siblings to come to the US, so my connection to his family was more remote. We returned to Tanzania every other summer and stayed on the same coffee farm on Mt Kilimanjaro where Dad was born and raised, and where his siblings live to this day. So while I grew up feeling very connected to the land, my relationship to our Tanzanian family was strained.
Where did you go to school? What was your major? I studied violin at the New England Conservatory of Music before heading to the University of Western Ontario (Canada), where I graduated with an Honors BA in Psychology.
You have worked as an activist, educator and counselor. How did you make the jump to filmmaker? Was that always a passion?
Movies have always been a passion of mine. But I never dreamed of becoming a filmmaker. Growing up, that wasn’t even a remote possibility.
But as fate would have it, the idea for this project hit me just when high quality digital video cameras were becoming more readily available (and affordable). Continue reading →
It’s sad when brothers and sisters stop talking to each other. It breaks my heart, and it’s my family story, as well.
There is a lot in this film for many learnings + conversation starters — sexism, families, culture, identity, generational gaps, violence, jealousy, economics, even courage on so many levels. Courage for Eli to make this and tell this story. courage for Eli’s dad to confront the chief, to marry who he loved. Thank you.
Realizing how despite cultural differences, we all have similar struggles, questions + discoveries. Although I’m 100% American, I identify greatly with the struggle to “ID” with any one particular culture, certain traditions, and across cultures.
