Latoya* (17) is confident and articulate. ”I want future generations to see us as leaders, not as followers, because then they will become leaders as well.”
She is talking about the Our Own Stories in Our Own Voices project, which takes 45 young women, some of whom are survivors of violence and abuse, and teaches them to document their experiences on film.
Latoya’s film will focus on the healing process victims of violence and abuse in her Northern Cape town have undergone — a process with which she is all too familiar.
The project will let the participants, aged between 14 and 20, tell their stories in their own voices by giving them the skills to make a short documentary.
”You do see change and that is the key and the point of the whole project,” says film director Jane Lipman, who worked with the participants. ”They are all, without exception, amazing women. Some of them live in the most extreme circumstances.”
She points out that the participants were deliberately chosen from a variety of cultural and income groups. Some are survivors of violence while others are activists in their communities.
The women have gained confidence in their filmmaking and communication skills, and this shines through. ”What I learned is to be more open and get more knowledge about things that you didn’t know about,” explains Happiness* (20), a participant.
”I want to make short stories about people who have suffered like me.”
”We’ve heard so many stories about abuse. And, in some bizarre way, we’ve almost become deaf to these stories,” says Levern Engel of Ochre Moving Pictures, executive producer of the project. ”What I want is to reopen South Africa’s ears to hearing, truly hearing. We need to hear these stories again and become engaged in them in a way that means something again.”
The SABC’s Pat Kelly says the series aims to develop an African story-telling tradition for TV. He believes viewers will appreciate the films because they represent issues in a way that is authentic and relevant. ”We’re getting young girls who will tell their own stories and tell it their way.”
The nine half-hour films will air on SABC2 from March 1 next year.
The project is a joint venture between Unicef, the SABC, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Gauteng Film Office and Ochre Moving Pictures.
* Names have been changed
