I realised this morning when dodging the Balham sunshine over coffee with Sound Editor Tom that I’ve said nothing about the excellent post-production team that are polishing PILI. This is an egregious error on my part as this team have been working hard and pulling in favours all over the shop to get the final … More Posties
Last night the UK crew members (minus Gary who is ahem working in Ibiza) got together for the first time since returning from Tanzania. I’ve seen Leanne because of the edit and we’ve all kept in touch, however this was the first time we all met in person and for the first half an hour … More The Picture and the Tattoo
Everybody I have asked for advice on how to make a film has told me the same thing: the most important thing is sound as it either can’t be fixed in post-production or will cost a lot to fix in post-production. Everyone says this, everyone means it, but in the film pecking order sound recordists … More Who would be a Sound Recordist?
Last week I attended the Axa Research Fund Celebration where existing and future research into environmental, life and socio-economic risk was showcased. Sitting through this research presentation I thought about how far I had come in 10 days – the tasty canapés and central Paris location were as far away from Msata and daily … More The Risks of Making a Film about Risk
The locations for Pili are set in the Pwani region of Tanzania. Without a budget to build sets we were entirely reliant on the kindness and trust of people to use their homes as Pili’s house, their field as a work space, their council offices for the Vikoba meetings, bits of beach to drive along, … More How we made Pili Part 1: Locations
Aesthetics are political and representations of Africa deeply political. The cinematography of the film is important both to enhance the story and to tread the delicate balance of representing the lives and stories of the women we are working with and avoiding racial and gendered metaphors of ‘Africanness,’ orientalist narratives of ‘otherness,’ and cosmopolitan clichés … More Cinematographer Craig, Aesthetics and Representations of Africa
In an intense working environment it is always good to have some light relief. Light relief on our preparatory trip to Tanzania came in the small but perfect package of our driver Jackson Kilo and his battered and breakdown-prone Toyota Noah. Jackson likes: Congolese songs that last a minimum of 20 minutes (often then repeated); … More Jackson Kilo: Driver Hero
The working name for our lead character is Pili. We decided on the name after meeting many Pilis from Miono, Bagamoyo and Mbwewe over the last two weeks. We tell the story of the everyday risk of HIV/AIDS through Pili and therefore we have introduced the character to lots of groups of women as we … More ‘Pili is everywhere,’ Cecilia
Hello! Director Leanne here. With the key element of our film being authenticity, I knew early on that I wanted to work with non-actors on this project. I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t a daunting prospect as a director. Getting the performances you want from actors with years of formal training and experience … More Workshopping by Leanne
Not Another AIDS Film 