INTERVIEW: Weaving a complex tapestry in ‘This Is Congo’
Before filmmaker Daniel McCabe began shooting his new documentary, This Is Congo, he was already familiar with the African nation and its multi-year conflict. As a freelance photographer, he had traveled throughout the Congo documenting communities and individuals struggling to survive amidst the simultaneous realities of brutal violence and stunning natural beauty.
When he began filming the documentary, he kept thinking of the expanded storytelling options that would be available to him. He was leaping beyond the role of a photojournalist and entering the realm of cinematography.
“I began as a photographer years ago,” McCabe said in a recent phone interview. “I was based in East Africa, in Nairobi, so my first time in Congo was 2008 as a photographer. I was freelance — shooting, submitting stuff to the news wires — so that’s when I first really started, where I got bit by the bug, I guess, you could say.”
After that initial experience a decade ago, he decided to focus on the Congo for a documentary project because he wanted a geographical place to focus his efforts and invest his time. He was after long-form journalism, and the Congo seemed as perfect a place as any other.
In the documentary, which has played multiple film festivals, McCabe and his team follow multiple sides of the bloody war, which has ripped the country apart. He interviews a former rebel whistleblower, a frontline commander and Mama Romance, a mineral dealer — all with the hope of conveying the numerous opinions on the competing interests of the conflict.
“I was having some difficulty with the limitations of the storytelling you could do when confined to shooting news stories as a photographer,” he said. “I think it was the story that I wanted to get out there that required it, required moving image and something a bit larger in scale, so that’s kind of where it began. And admittedly early on, my ideas of what I thought the film should be were about resources and arms groups and exploitation. … So what the film turned into obviously is something a bit different, and that’s just the process of the amount of time we spent on the ground … and just being quiet enough and open enough to learn what was happening rather than come in with my own preconceptions.”
The film only runs 91 minutes, so that means many characters ended up on the cutting-room floor. The stories that make up the final narrative weave into one another, creating a full tapestry and broad, complex drama.
“I think at the end of the film, viewers are often left confused and frustrated,” McCabe said. “The film really messes with you on a bunch of different levels, and that’s by design. … We let the Congolese characters speak for themselves, and what I think the viewers will walk away with isn’t necessarily those solutions or where to text their money to help. But I think it’s about equipping them with a bit more of an understanding of what’s going on, the components of the conflicts that have been happening over the decades, and maybe the next time they see Congo pop up on the airwaves, it won’t just be about flipping the channel or turning the page. They’ll engage a bit more, which is what I think ultimately the outside world needs to do.”
He added: “You’ve got this war that’s massive. It’s [a country] at war, different iterations of conflicts waving over it for its entire history. To sum that up in a quick report is a very difficult thing to do, so often, if people don’t understand something, or don’t identify with something, it’s really difficult to get them to engage.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Click here for more information on This Is Congo.
