About the film
Background
Women across Africa are often the objects of reports and analyses, providing information for studies they will never see. Where the Water Meets the Sky documents a participatory filmmaking project designed to amend this practice, providing women in Africa with the tools to share their own stories and perspectives – women who, for the most part, have never been given the chance to learn beyond the household.
The idea for Where the Water Meets the Sky began to materialize in 2003 in Tamale, the capital of the Northern region of Ghana. Here, Camfed (the Campaign for Female Education)* initiated a filmmaking training program for girls and young women.
Abibata Mahama and Dominique Chadwick, experienced participatory filmmakers, taught a small group of women from Tamale basic principles in storytelling, camera technique and sound recording. Over the course of two intense weeks, the group made three short films which addressed commonly stigmatized issues such as polygamy, child fostering and the treatment of people with disabilities. The filmmaking group then premiered their films in their communities across the northern region of Ghana and led discussions on the issues which their films had raised.
The additional, and unexpected, bonus of the workshop was that the women themselves had clearly been transformed, individually and collectively, through the experience of making their own film. Camfed had another film workshop planned for a district in northern Zambia, called Samfya. It was suggested that the women participating in the Samfya workshop might themselves be the subject of a documentary film, to capture the achievements of the women behind the camera. With the consent of the women participating in the workshop, documentary filmmakers David Eberts and Helen Cotton were invited to chronicle the new program, led again by Abibata and Dominique.
Samfya’s workshop would yield profound results, all of which are captured in Where the Water Meets the Sky. The women filmmakers’ representation of their society overturns many preconceptions about poverty and AIDS. It also refreshes our assumptions about literacy and potential. Most of the women from Samfya lacked conventional literacy, and were largely dependent with their husbands; yet they were able to use the developed world’s most familiar medium, the film camera, to challenge age-old social injustices within their community and encourage serious change.
The women now call themselves The Samfya Women Filmmakers. They are already working on their next film project of social exploration. Some are going to school for the first time. Others have started new careers. Their confidence is a testament to the creative potential in every individual and to the advantage for us all when it is released to the world.
