'Days
of Hope' & Q&A with Director
Ditte Haarløv Jensen
The Frontline Club
Monday 26th January
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| twitter.com/frontlineclub |
It was a long journey. I mean it took 3
years, with shooting on and off. To Mauretania I went twice, Italy I went once,
only two weeks actually so that was really compressed, having to find a place
and people and shoot within that time span. Copenhagen I had a lot of time
because that’s where I’m based obviously. And it was also the most difficult
place to film. All in all I don’t even know how many (aside) do you know? My
producer is here by the way
Producer: Many hours.
Many hours in languages I did not
understand. So there was a long editing process first off, of getting things
translated and then of course, trying to narrow down, finding out what is the
story here.
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| bullittfilm.dk |
The idea actually came to me many
years before I started the film. The idea started when I met a guy just after I finished at the Danish Film
School. This was in 2007. He told me how he had come to Europe across the sea
and through the city of Nouadhibou where I later went. His last job in Nouadhibou
had been as a grave digger at the catholic cemetery where he would dig the
graves for the people who had not made it across the sea right, so his friends
who had rolled ashore, dead corpses. He would dig their grave and make money to
make the journey himself. So when he told me that story I thought wow, this is,
that would be a wild way to make a film and to tell the story without having to
be on the boat yourself and having to be very specific and very hardcore.
Meanwhile I started making another film and
many years passed. So when I came back to this story which had stayed on with
me, the reality was different. So, the sea had sort of closed, because the
Spanish coastguard had started patrolling and all that.
So, reality was different.
I off-tracked a little bit maybe but that
was how it started anyways.
(Sorry I’m a little bit tired because I
travelled from Copenhagen today with my son who woke up at 7o’clock this
morning and slept whilst you were starting to see this film.)
Q) It was a really beautiful film, it was amazing.
Loads of questions but I’ll try and limit it to 2. The first is just, what’s happened
to them all? Second is, one of things I really find amazing is just how it was
cinematic in the sense that no-one seemed particularly aware of the camera ,
but you must have been pretty close. I mean, I’ve worked in those kind of
places before and did you have to talk them through that? How did that work,
did you have to say hey don’t talk to me? And, look sad… how did that evolve?
Of course, it took a lot of time being with
people. I mean, as I said filmed a lot right. So, there is a lot that isn’t in
the movie. But I do spend a lot of time with the people I film. I mean they are
my friends right and that’s why also they’re not aware of the camera because
they’re speaking to me there with them. Although there is also a
cinematographer in the room, who is incredibly gifted yes she’s a very good
maker.
So what happened, Harouna, he actually went
to Morocco and he tried twice to cross the ocean. The first time they were
stopped before getting into the borders and the second time he actually came
into a boat but it capsized. Luckily he had a life vest on because he doesn’t
know how to swim. So he came back onto some rocks and was hanging there and the
police took him to jail and beat him up and then he was out again. And now he’s
actually back in Mali. For one month he’s been back in Mali. 6.33
In Italy I, I don’t know where they are.
Many of them are still in Italy though, that’s what I know. Without documents.
What happens is they get a resident’s permit for a year, so they’re out of the
camp and when that expires they just keep on hanging in as long as they can
really.
Austin, the bottle collector in Copenhagen,
he’s in Sweden with the woman you saw him with, who is his wife. He’s still
waiting for his papers. You might sort of, doubt, that he will get them but
hopefully.
And then there is Thelma, the young girl in
the film, whose mother is a prostitute, I made another film about. She is
luckily out of the brothel where she was living with her mother and now she,
she’s studying, which is very good. And her mother is also, she moved away from
that place to another, still going through a lot of hardship but managing. Yep.
Q) What was it like filming in Mauretania, did you
have any security issues, did you have to prepare much in advance before you
went there to film? What was it like?
It was a little bit rock and roll like.
It’s kind of like the wild west. But it was also, yes there were security
issues in the sense that they don’t like people filming there. I was called to
the police station many times just for taking the camera out in public. So I
had to film within the people’s homes as you saw in the film, that’s where most
of it is recorded right. I had a paper from some, ministry of cultural affairs
but it didn’t really help me at all whilst I was in Nouadhibou because the
ministry of culture was in the capital city so that was too far away and in Nouadhibou
it was the sheriff of Nouadhibou who was ruling so.
But I was very lucky that I had been in
touch with the catholic priest, and told I met the guy that told me that
initial story and he was the one who told me, just come, come there’s plenty of
stories to tell even though the sea is closed. So, he also invited me to stay
at the catholic mission when I was there. When I arrived we went out for dinner
and we found out that his sister was teaching my little sister at the boarding
school in Swaziland where she was studying. So his sister, was Nigerian, so
this Nigerian woman was teaching my Danish little sister who lived in
Mozambique and was studying in Swaziland. So, that was a nice connection to
make.
So the first sermon I went to, where he was
preaching, the whole migrant community in Nouadhibou, this is Ditte, she might
be white on the outside but she’s black on the inside. Talk to her and tell her
your story. So, I was very lucky in that sense that he really opened up the
migrant community for me.
Q) How common is women in effect falling into
prostitution because it was, there was clearly a lot of implication in that in
several telephone calls, that that was the hint behind it? Secondly, in
Mauretania is there any indication of economic trends which have made the
migration need worse or probably not better. I say that because there have been
reports for many years of the fishing being decimated, particularly like in
Somalia by offshore industrials and also, whether you heard anything, amidst
allegations made by a major representative of a major European country that
certain countries in Europe are in effect, bribing officials in the transit countries
to block sailings. Did you ever hear anything of that?
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| serenoregis.org |
In regards to the economic situation with
the fishing being emptied out for the little everyday guy, fisherman, I mean
that is what happens all along the African coast no? There aren’t many
possibilities of making a living as an ordinary normal human being. So, so that
makes people want to travel more, obviously. I mean many of the captains, they
made a living by actually taking people over to the other side right, whilst
fishing.
And in regards to prostitution yes that was
mainly how the women would get by, I mean there wasn’t another way for a woman
really. And in Mauretania, in Italy and in Denmark yes.
Q) How did you find your contributors and are there
any that didn’t make the cut who also have quite interesting stories?
The stories outside the film are always so
much more interesting than what you see here. I mean reality far surpasses
anything that I could ever show in a film. It’s a crazy world. I have many more
characters but I ended up with these because they were the ones that were
closest to my heart. So I suppose in that sense I feel I have represented my
experience as good as I could.
How did I find them, I mean, through the
priest, father Jerome. Just through walking the streets basically a lot.
Harouna was actually from just walking around and yeh meeting him. And then in
Italy, that’s actually a pretty crazy story, in Italy I wanted to go to Lampedusa
but Berlusconi he had closed it down, and declared a state of emergency at that
point because so many people were arriving with the boats. So, no journalism
affiliated people could go there. Instead, I had to go to Sicily and Sicily
just privatised the whole businem, asylum centres. So what happened is I
found this place and it was a mafia boss who had gotten it. And the mafia boss,
he didn’t really care about the place, he just cared about the…money that he
could get per person that was in there. So, I was in a really weird way, was
free to walk in and start filming and nobody asked me any questions. So that’s
what I did.
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| cphdox.dk |
No I met Austin also in the street and I
think he agreed to participate because he had that wife in Sweden, so he was in
a way, a little more home safe than the other guys after all.
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| dfi.dk |
Q) You mentioned the 2 week very compressed filming time and I was wondering if that was a decision on your part or whether it was the authorities that restricted you to 2 weeks?
No that was the financial restriction. I
went with my cinematographer and we needed a place to stay and all that.
Q) Who did you have in mind when you started making this movie? Did you have policy makers in mind? What’s the influence really that you want to have?
I really do not think so far. I don’t know
if that’s good or bad but I always start a film by being touched myself by
somebody’s story and then I take it from there. I guess deep down, I am a human
being that sort of feels there’s a huge injustice in this world that I would
like maybe make my little part in shifting a little bit. So, that’s my
indictment if you call it like that, I don’t really know.
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| rotaserituais.com |
I think the people that travel, they know
that it’s not as good as, they know there’s a financial crisis in Europe, they know it’s not paradise on Earth. They
have to, they just need to dream, to
believe that they can make it, that they can have a better life because what
they have behind them carrying on their back is, is heavy duty no? They need to
give their family, their children a future.
What I believe is that we should share the
wealth of this world a little more equally right then I don’t think people
would have to risk their lives like they do crossing the ocean for a, for life
as a prostitute or a bottle collector.
How that wealth is to be distributed, I
don’t know, I’m not totally sure.
Q) As Franz Fanon said many, many years ago, ‘the only
feeling of certainty for a black body is the feeling of uncertainty’ and I
think you really showed it in your movie. You answered many questions I wanted
to ask but one was also, did you speak to anyone staff that was receiving the
people, that was hosting the people or did you just speak to the immigrants?
I mean I was in the centre right, right in
the asylum centre and I spoke to the people there but they were not really
receiving, they were just there.
I mean, they’re just doing their job, they
don’t have any broader, broader feeling or experience of the whole
interconnectedness of it all. They’re just happy they have a job in a country
that is in a recession right.
Q) I really loved the film, I thought it was
beautiful. One of the things that I found really moving were the little
conversations back home to children and there were lots of references to
children who were being left behind. I just wondered if you spoke to any of
those children or any of the partners that were left behind. Because you kind
of picked up a lot of resentment and anger with a couple of the women. But I
just wonder, the effect that was having on the children and how much they
understood and could comprehend.
Yeh, no I did not speak… I did not speak
with the family, families, left behind but it was very important for me to have
that there of course, because that’s what it’s all about. That’s why these
people are moving right. But I felt that Thelma, the young girl you see in
Copenhagen, is sort of the living picture of all those left behind. That’s why
you see the consequences that it has even when you succeed in getting your
child to Europe, it might not be just as blissful as you thought.
Q) Thank you for the film it was very powerful. I just
wondered if it was difficult to get funding for something of this subject? And
what the obstacles were and whether people were very happy to get involved.
Ditte: Maybe that’s a question for my
producer
Prod: (INAUDIBLE)…..
No Microphone.
This scheme, was a scheme where we could
work quite freely. We already have television on board and the Danish film
institute came onboard in sort of a package that is all about, trying to walk
new ways. So, people who were very preoccupied with trying to find other ways
of describing this situation rather than n an anonymous journalistic way. So we
had, we didn’t have a lot of money but
we had a great amount of freedom in making the film as we wanted to make
it, you could say.
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| youtube.com |
Really I think most of all, they just
wanted to hang out with me. I mean I make it very clearly when I film that I’m
not going to give them a ticket to Europe. I can’t help in that way. I do not
pay, the one time I did it turned out really badly. So it’s a matter of a hard
feeling right, I mean, it’s a matter of meeting somebody where you feel ok
here’s a connection, somebody I really want to spend some time with.
Then of course, I do help as much as I can
right, as the person I am. For Lisa the prostitute, the mother of Thelma, who’s
been living in ??London?? for many years, I’ve
always been helping her with her connections with the authorities and things
like that. Where I can help, I, I try to be as good as a social worker can be.
But that is it. I mean, I do make it very
clear that I cannot, give them something.
That was it, it was sort of a sacrifice no?
For his journey to go well. And I felt absolutely fine, filming that goat.
Because it was really, it was a sacrifice and the whole deal was that the meat
of course also is being sacrificed to the people in the community so it came of
good use.
And it works beautifully. Of course, it has
a bit of a shock effect in the film but that’s obviously the intention since
it’s so difficult to create any drama in a film about people waiting. That was
the hugest challenge in this film, you know nothing happens, people are just
waiting, so at least I got a goat.
Q) Thanks very much it was a wonderful film. I think
as a black person, as an African, for us, the only solution we have is to
completely and utterly leave Europe, go back to Africa and build our own
continent. That’s the only solution we have. There’s no other solution and I
think people are prepared to die for that. When we looked at the colour valley
incident in France, I think as you can see, some of us have just lost hope
completely, where they kill, they leave and then they come back to die. I feel
you’re going to get two strains. One, where we say we need to leave, we need to
get out of this hellhole and the other one is, well we’re going to take as many
people as we can with us. I think that, that’s the way it is. Thank You.
That is, yeh, that’s a way to see it.
Q) What kind of structure did you have in mind and how
did it come together in the end? Did you have any storytelling technique that
helped you get, move the story along?
Totally just by doing. It was really
difficult actually to create the story. It was created in the editing. I did
have an idea of free independent rules so to say, but that didn’t work out at
all. So, it just happened because that was the way the story wanted to be told.
The sort of intertwining of the different places.
Q) How did you decide on the order?
Maybe because that’s the order that I
visited the different places. And moving back and forth made sense, because
they were all sort of reflecting back on one another. Like, the characters are
also reflecting back on one another.
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| grundtvigs.dk |
No I don’t have really any moral
restrictions when I’m filming. I tried that once and it really didn’t work
because good and bad are so much, intertwined.
I mean, as I said before, in Copenhagen it
was difficult because people were so disillusioned and they spent so many years
in Europe and had gotten nowhere basically, except from the street right. So
for me coming with a camera, that was of course, a little privileged white
woman, coming there to make it big in Hollywood as they saw it. Which was not
really the case but I can understand their point of view. And that’s what I had
to sort of, fight with or put up with. So, understandably enough, that was a
resentment. They were just trying to survive. And it wasn’t easy.
Otherwise no, I think, no resentment except
from the Mauritanian government because they were so racist towards the black
African community. So they sort of felt that I was doing something with them
and they were very scared that I would point the finger at the Mauretanian
government.
HOST: Thank you so much for being here and sharing so
much information about the making of the film. If anyone wants to find more
information about the film you can visit the bullet film website, is that the
best place?
Yeh or just write me an email if there’s
any questions you forgot.
Visit the bullitt film website here: http://bullittfilm.dk/
And for Ditte's own website here: http://www.dihajo.com/
And for more about the Frontline Club here: http://www.frontlineclub.com/
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