Camfed‘s World AIDS Day premiere of “Where the Water Meets the Sky” (currently airing on Sundance) was a memorable evening. Guests started streaming in to the Paley Center for New Media around 6PM for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (the caterer, Chef & Co., was superb) and the movie began at 6:30.
If you have yet to see this riveting film, it’s a must-see. It tells the story of two filmmakers (founders of Film Africa) who go into a small village in Zambia to teach the women how to create a film that captures the reality of their lives. As they’re brainstorming ideas for the movie, one student mentions a young woman in the village named Penelope, whose life has been wracked with many of the struggles that are common to women in Africa. Her parents have both died of AIDS, her sister became a prostitute to support herself and her siblings, and ultimately she dies of AIDS, too. Penelope is left to fend for herself, narrowly escaping a similar fate after dropping out of school by resuming her education and starting a small business (and ultimately by participating in this Camfed-funded project). The students ask Penelope if she would consider playing herself in a film about her life and she bravely agrees to. So “Where the Water Meets the Sky” is not the film these women make, but a film about the process of making that film. It’s beautifully told and captured by Helen Cotton and David Eberts.
After the screening, one of the teacher-filmmakers, Abibata Mahama, the former principal from Penelope’s high school, Benjamin Chama, and Camfed Executive Director Ann Cotton spoke with Ron Simon from the Paley Center about the process of making this film and the necessity of investing in education in Africa. Much of the discussion centered around how the men in the village dealt with their wives and sisters (and mothers) being absent from their regular domestic routines for two weeks while they made the film. Initially, the husbands in the village were worried that their wives would leave them because making a film suddenly made them more powerful, Mr. Chama said. But soon there was a consensus that the film (and the cathartic process of making it) was good for the entire community.
It was during this panel discussion that audience members discovered that Penelope Machipi’s life had changed drastically since she made this film. Thanks to Camfed and an initiative run by Goldman Sachs in Samfya (the Zambian village), she trained in Information Technology and now runs a computer center there. 400 people a week use the center, which has become an integral part of the community. Earlier this year, Penelope won the Goldman Sachs-Fortune Global Women Leaders Award and met Condeleeza Rice. (Her speech is at the end of this short video.)
Abigail, another young woman who participates in the film, is now attending college and is studying to become an insurance broker. Towards the end of the panel, Mr. Chama said that even the husbands of the village—not wanting to be left behind—have started taking literacy classes and engaging in other forms of self-improvement.
After the panel and questions from the audience and from our live streaming FORA.tv audience, we all moved into the adjoining room for more wine and conversation.
