SAE Magazine 13-3

INDEX you. But once done with u get started with your first start with the documen- school. I actually started rough a family friend who ation here in the Nether- te some form of a support e people in Rwanda. rth with a variety of ideas, documentary project which The next thing I knew, it I can imagine – did you have a crew? No and that was only part of the problem. We had never scouted the place and despite the funding we had been granted, it was a real challenge to have people in place to help out in Rwanda, not to men- tion the permits we did not have. As a matter of fact, my father and I had to pretend we were tourists tak- ing pictures with our DSLR cameras. But what about the people, did they not object to being filmed? A lot of them did. But as we explained our intentions to tell the world their story, to our surprise, people were a lot more receptive. On that note, I also would like to emphasise the fact that the people who helped us out and worked with us down in Rwanda were amazingly professional and efficient. As a matter of fact, I sort of wish people were a bit more like them here in Western Europe. That must have been quite an experience, so all and all how long did it take you to complete this documentary? [Laughs] Two years! I know it sounds like a lot, and it probably is given that it is only 25 minutes long. That said, we had a very limited budget, limited human resources, and not to forget an over- whelming amount of footage. The response we got from so many families and in- dividuals who wanted to share their stories made us capture it all. And as you probably know, the more footage you have, the more of a nightmare it can become during the editing stage. ➤

SAE Magazine 13-3

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