If you’re reading this in Africa, bored and want to do something entertaining: find a visiting European and serve them a nice drink with ice.* Next, watch them squirm in a way that is too polite to turn down the drink or question if the ice is made from bottled water (manners matter), but … More Fear of Ice
In times of uncertainty and insecurity I like to think of a man the PILI crew call Mr Karibu. Mr Karibu is the elder of the family whose homes we used as the location of Pili’s house in Pwani. Mr Karibu got his nickname because of his use of ‘karibu’ which means welcome/you’re welcome/no problem … More Mr Karibu and Harambee
December 2015 – January 2016 were not the best times for this project. I was stuck in the biggest patch of Film Board mud incapable of getting anywhere with the permit I had applied and paid for. As my partner put it at the time, this was stressing me out as it was testing … More Unseen Heroes
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?
Early fans (or, er, coerced friends) of this blog will recall that this film began life as a documentary and became a feature length drama. There was therefore no prop budget in the production budget. The story was my fault, as described here it was planned on the side of the road in Mbwewe, … More How We Made Pili Part 3: Props
Pili is a film based on the stories of women living with HIV/AIDS in Pwani, told by these women, and filmed where they live. The women in the film are played by women from the region rather than trained actors. The majority of these women are HIV positive. Although the character of Pili is … More How we made Pili Part 2: Cast
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
Not Another AIDS Film 