“I Believe that Valuing African Audiences Will Break the Pattern of Cliches That We Have Become Accustomed To”: Akuol de Mabior on Her Berlinale-Debuting doc No Simple Way Home

South Sudanese director Akuol de Mabior’s No Simple Way Home is a gorgeous example of what African filmmakers can accomplish if Westerners would just get out of their way. A world premiere in the Panorama section of this year’s Berlinale, the doc is produced by Kenyan filmmaker Sam Soko (Softie) and the South African duo Tiny Mungwe and Don Edkins of STEPS (Social Transformation and Empowerment Projects) as part of the organization’s Generation Africa initiative, “a pan-African anthology of 25 documentary films from 16 countries in Africa, on the topic of migration.” And it tells a tale not of folks fleeing to the mythic “promised lands” of the colonizers, but defiantly staying put on their own continent to right the fallout from historical wrongs at home. Luckily for de Mabior, the very embodiment of taking the power back for the people resides literally in her home – as her mother is Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior, who also happens to be “the mother of South Sudan.” The director herself was forced into exile as a teenager in 2005, soon after her father, the rebel leader-turned-politician John Garang de Mabior, died in a helicopter crash (three weeks after becoming First Vice President of Sudan). And now after years of grueling conflict, South Sudanese independence (in 2011), and a fragile peace agreement, the mother – and current Vice President of South Sudan – and her now adult daughters have returned with nervous high hopes. Along with the filmmaker sibling’s camera in tow. Filmmaker reached out to the Havana-born, Nairobi-residing, first-time-feature director a week prior to her doc’s Berlinale debut to learn all about this most unusual family movie.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.