We Will Go To the Village (working title)
Director:
Zara Huband
Producer:
Production company:
Production country:
UK/Côte d'Ivoire
Duration in minutes:
70
Contact:
Sinopsys:
Following the death of her husband, Marceline returns to the village where she was born, after forty years living in Europe. She is accompanied by her daughter, Zara, who has never been there. Together they travel inland from Abidjan to Toulepleu, retracing a landscape of memory and imagination. Using their conversations, family connections, and fragments of the past, they confront what it means to come home to a place that is both familiar and unknown.
Long Sinopsys
Two grandparents sit among photos and letters, reading correspondence they wrote decades ago to their son, a young journalist living in Abidjan. They have not seen the letters in years and barely remember writing them. Their voices read aloud the words. Elsewhere, their granddaughter Zara packs the house and moves items around, clearing the space.
Marceline is in her sixties. She has lived most of her adult life in Europe but keeps a connection to her homeland. She first met the journalist Mark via a phone call from Liberia to London shortly after his release by Charles Taylor. They later married, lived in several African countries, and settled in the UK. After Mark’s death, Marceline and their daughter Zara return to Côte d’Ivoire, carrying his ashes.
Marceline has sold the family home in Stroud and intends to visit her childhood village near the Liberian border, where she has not been for forty years.
In Abidjan, they reconnect with family and friends. Marceline revisits streets and places that shaped her. Zara observes the city and its rhythms, documenting life with her camera and learning some Guéré. Their experiences run in parallel: Marceline through memory, Zara through observation.
The next stage is a road trip. They travel north to Yamoussoukro, staying a night, then head west toward Toulepleu along green roads dotted with vendors. In Toulepleu, they arrive at the family home, where Marceline’s late brother was buried. Marceline walks familiar paths, recalls childhood, and reconnects with villagers. Zara records the daily life around her, connecting her father’s stories to the present.
The film traces the return to a homeland for two generations, showing how absence, and presence intersect in daily life. The film moves from urban spaces to village landscapes, combining observation, movement, and the material traces of family history.
Creative Process
The film is intimate and shows the world from Zara’s perspective and Marceline’s perspective. They both experience Côte d’Ivoire in different ways, and the style reflects that. Zara’s scenes, when she is speaking or when we observe the world through her camera, are more distant and sparse, as the place feels unknown and she is figuring out her space within it. Marceline’s sequences are more immersive; she is at home, the place is hers.
Narration changes throughout. Initially, it is the grandparents reading letters to their son, who is in a place that feels distant. Their relationship with the country is later experienced through their daughter-in-law and then through their grandchildren, offering a perspective on the man as son, father, and husband, the catalyst of the story. Later, the majority of the narration comes from a self-conscious voiceover read by Zara, alongside recorded conversations between Zara and Marceline.
There is some archive material, predominantly photos and letters scanned and viewed on screen. Editing is varied, moving between slower, meditative scenes and shorter, more playful moments, reflecting the duality of the film (mother and daughter, city and countryside, past and present).
The rhythm also shifts with location. The prologue takes place in England, where the empty house reflects loss and absence; the scene is dark and slow, echoing experimental qualities seen in John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses. In Abidjan, the style becomes brighter and the pace increases as we move through the city, jumping between characters. During the road trip, the pace slows again to match the meditative rhythm of travel, in a more traditional road-movie style. In the village, editing becomes more varied, combining shots to reflect perception and memory.
The film avoids sentimentality or nostalgia through an editing approach that prioritises the visual and sonic experience of Côte d’Ivoire from the parallel perspectives of mother and daughter. Strong colours reference African filmmakers such as Djibril Diop Mambéty and Ousmane Sembène. The camera is small and unobtrusive to maintain intimacy and to avoid the distance a large camera can create; the visual style is also influenced by films such as Letters to Max (Eric Baudelaire) and The Mariner of the Mountains (Karim Aïnouz)
Sound is central. Ambient sounds (traffic, languages of Abidjan, the market, the lagoon, night and day) and they create a rich sonic landscape. Music reflects African culture across generations: Ivorian Ziglibithy by Ernesto Djédjé, Zouglou by Magic System, Congolese Soukous from Orchestre Bella Bella, TPOK Jazz rumba, and postcolonial national bands such as Bembeya Jazz (Guinea-Bissau). These sounds accompany mother and daughter, in the car and throughout the soundtrack, alongside recorded conversations and Zara’s narration, highlighting their parallel but divergent experiences.
Director's note
The film is intimate and shows the world from Zara’s perspective and Marceline’s perspective. They both experience Côte d’Ivoire in different ways, and the style reflects that. Zara’s scenes, when she is speaking or when we observe the world through her camera, are more distant and sparse, as the place feels unknown and she is figuring out her space within it. Marceline’s sequences are more immersive; she is at home, the place is hers.
Narration changes throughout. Initially, it is the grandparents reading letters to their son, who is in a place that feels distant. Their relationship with the country is later experienced through their daughter-in-law and then through their grandchildren, offering a perspective on the man as son, father, and husband, the catalyst of the story. Later, the majority of the narration comes from a self-conscious voiceover read by Zara, alongside recorded conversations between Zara and Marceline.
There is some archive material, predominantly photos and letters scanned and viewed on screen. Editing is varied, moving between slower, meditative scenes and shorter, more playful moments, reflecting the duality of the film (mother and daughter, city and countryside, past and present).
The rhythm also shifts with location. The prologue takes place in England, where the empty house reflects loss and absence; the scene is dark and slow, echoing experimental qualities seen in John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses. In Abidjan, the style becomes brighter and the pace increases as we move through the city, jumping between characters. During the road trip, the pace slows again to match the meditative rhythm of travel, in a more traditional road-movie style. In the village, editing becomes more varied, combining shots to reflect perception and memory.
The film avoids sentimentality or nostalgia through an editing approach that prioritises the visual and sonic experience of Côte d’Ivoire from the parallel perspectives of mother and daughter. Strong colours reference African filmmakers such as Djibril Diop Mambéty and Ousmane Sembène. The camera is small and unobtrusive to maintain intimacy and to avoid the distance a large camera can create; the visual style is also influenced by films such as Letters to Max (Eric Baudelaire) and The Mariner of the Mountains (Karim Aïnouz)
Sound is central. Ambient sounds (traffic, languages of Abidjan, the market, the lagoon, night and day) and they create a rich sonic landscape. Music reflects African culture across generations: Ivorian Ziglibithy by Ernesto Djédjé, Zouglou by Magic System, Congolese Soukous from Orchestre Bella Bella, TPOK Jazz rumba, and postcolonial national bands such as Bembeya Jazz (Guinea-Bissau). These sounds accompany mother and daughter, in the car and throughout the soundtrack, alongside recorded conversations and Zara’s narration, highlighting their parallel but divergent experiences.
Director
Zara Huband
Zara is a Barcelona-based, filmmaker originating from London. She has directed two documentary shorts around migration, borders and performance, and DOP’d and edited an experimental short. She has also worked as a freelance documentary researcher and translator. She recently completed a master's degree in Documentary Film at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
outros trabalhos:
