We Will Go To the Village
Director:
Zara Huband
Producer:
Production company:
N/A
Production country:
UK/Côte d'Ivoire
Duration in minutes:
70
Contact:
Sinopsys:
Following the death of her husband, Marceline returns to the village in Côte d’Ivoire where she was born, after forty years living in the UK. She is accompanied by her daughter, Zara, who has never been there. Together they go on a roadtrip from Abidjan to Toulepleu, retracing a landscape that has existed in Marceline’s distant memory and Zara’s childhood memory. Through their cross-country journey, they use their expectations and memories to confront what it means to come home to a place that has changed, and that is both familiar and transformed.
Long Sinopsys
Two grandparents sit among photos and letters, reading correspondence they wrote to their son, Mark Huband, a young journalist living in Abidjan in the 80s and who died in 2021. They have not seen the letters in years and barely remember writing them. They read the words aloud. Then, on the screen, the photos that Mark took on his assignments, appear beneath the voices of the grandparents. They are images of Rwanda, of Liberia, of Sudan.
Mark and Marceline first met via a phone call from Liberia to London shortly after his release from kidnapping by the Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor. They later married, had two children, lived in several countries across Africa, and settled in the UK until Mark’s death.
Marceline has lived most of her adult life in Europe but maintains a deep connection to her homeland, she is now in her sixties. When we meet her, she has just sold the family home in Stroud, UK and returned to Côte d’Ivoire.
Marceline is in Abidjan where she is reconnecting with family and friends. She revisits streets and places that shaped her. Zara observes the city, documenting life with her camera and learning some Guéré, her mother’s language, with her cousins. Marceline and Zara’s experiences of the city run in parallel as they prepare for their road trip.
They will travel from the chaos of Abidjan to the rural forests of Toulepleu on the western border.
On the first day of their two-day journey, they leave Abidjan, which lies between the coast and the lagoon and they travel north to Yamoussoukro, the capital, staying one night to break up the journey.
On the second day, they travel through the lush green roads of the Ivorian countryside to arrive in Toulepleu.
When they arrive, the preparations for the Drouho festival are in full swing. Drouho is the festival of masks traditionally celebrated across the whole region and brings together people from different villages. Marceline has not seen this celebration since she was a child.
At the end of the film, mother and daughter say goodbye. Zara returns to Europe and Marceline remains in Côte d’Ivoire, which has become her home again
Creative Process
Structure
The film is split into five sections: a prologue, three movements and an epilogue. Each movement shows a different visual tone to reflect the atmosphere of each of the physical spaces.
Prologue - Stroud, England.
The prologue explores the backstory of Mark and Marceline’s relationship through letters and images. We sit in Ann and Dave’s living room as they go through some photos and letters which they start reading. On the screen we see some of the photos that Mark took and they are reading letters they wrote him when he was living abroad.
First Movement – Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
Mother and daughter navigate the city. The atmosphere is hectic, fast-paced and a little overwhelming, capturing the essence of the city through two different characters. This is captured through cuts between street scenes, market scenes, family dinners and preparations for the trip to Toulepleu.
Second Movement – The Road.
The pair first travel through Yamoussoukro and the Ivorian countryside. Here the atmosphere changes to a more intimate tone, less structured. Zara and Marceline are filmed from inside the car which is set up with mics to capture the conversations - a camera person sits in the back seat - which are both personal and banal. But we are also stopping along the way so that Marceline can take in the landscape of the road that has changed so much since she was last there. The shots jump between inside the car and outside, on the road and are a combination of two cameras.
Third Movement – Toulepleu, Côte d’Ivoire.
The village will be in preparation for the annual mask festival. Here, we follow two lines, the first is Marceline connecting with family and going back through the village she grew up in with her parents and grandparents. Running parallel to this the village is preparing for the Drouho festival of masks.
Epilogue - Two spaces
Marceline and Zara are now separated across continents having shared this experience of travelling back to the village
Visual
I experience Côte d’Ivoire differently from my mother and the style reflects that. The scenes when I am speaking or observing through her camera, are more distant, reflecting that I am trying to know this place that is mine but that is also unknown. I am figuring out my space within it. My mother’s scenes are more immersive; she is at home, the place is hers. These distances and different perspectives are shown with the use of two cameras: one operated by me and the other by another camera operator.
There is some archive material used in the prologue, these are photos and letters scanned and viewed on screen. The photos are some of the letters that my dad received from his parents while he was travelling and working around West and East Africa and the photos are from his time there, this allows to give some of the backstory of my father’s life and brings my grandparents - my father’s parents - into the story.
The structure of the film allows each movement to have a different rhythm that reflects the tone and atmosphere of each symbolic and physical space. The editing of the first movement reflects the fast-paced energy of the city of Abidjan alongside Marceline’s reaction to how the city has changed. Whereas the second movement maintains a more meditative style, from within the car and of the landscape outside. The final movement is more observational as it captures the village and its celebrations.
The film seeks to find a visual language that does not simply tend towards the sentimental but instead finds a way to layer the varying perspectives of all the characters and, in turn, create a picture of a country. By using two cameras, I can film in a more personal way, through my eyes, and the other camera captures a bigger picture of the relationship between me and my mum and the country.
Sound
Voiceover is a combination of narration and conversations. In the prologue,my grandparents read letters to their son when he is in a place that to them is so distant. Later, the majority of the narration will be a text written and read by me combined with recorded conversations with my mum. Sound is central and will be captured by a local sound recordist who understands how to capture the sonic energy of Abidjan through ambient sounds: traffic, languages of Abidjan, the market, the lagoon, night and day. But who can also capture the intimate conversations in the car alongside the conversations the African music that I grew up with and that my mother and her parents grew up with in pre and post-independence Côte d’Ivoire: Ivorian Ziglibithy by Ernesto Djédjé, Zouglou by Magic System, Congolese Soukous from Orchestre Bella Bella, TPOK Jazz rumba, and post-independence military bands such as Bembeya Jazz from Guinea. These sounds accompany mother and daughter in the car.
Mixtape:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQFt7JqY5k-HRwOSBaOcGRBz2eRKRezg2
Director's note
This film was born after my dad’s sudden death in 2021, when my mum immediately felt the need to return home that she left when she was 25. I have visited Côte d’Ivoire only three times, so it is a place that has always existed more in my memory of family holidays than in my lived reality. Through the overlaying of voice and image, as a way of presenting different perspectives I want to bring that imagined version into contact with the present-day country and show the space that exists between what Côte d’Ivoire is, my mother’s perspective and my perspective.
Alongside this, my mum has her own version of Côte d’Ivoire, built on her memories, and the expectation that comes from returning to a place that is different from the one she left. The film layers these different versions of the same place in order to build a perspective shaped by our shared but disparate insider/outsider positions.
My dad, Mark, was a journalist in Côte d’Ivoire, so he also had his vision, experience and perspective based on a version of the country in the 80s. It was a place that he had gone to in search of something as a young journalist.
These three parallel visions: mother, father, daughter, overlap and diverge with the image and atmosphere of the country itself. My dad was an observer and in a way I am taking on that same role of observer but my connection to the place is different.
Insider/outsider is one of several dualities I want to explore. During the writing process, doubling became a recurring idea. My mum has lived in England for many years, she has made the place her home and built a family there, yet she has always referred to Côte d’Ivoire as “back home”. I am interested in the experience of being in two places at once - one physically and one in your mind, and how a person can hold parallel versions of themself: the person who is here and the one who remains elsewhere.
I will observe but also be part of the action, shifting between protagonist and director. There is uncertainty in what I will find, which is why the roadtrip style allows for the kind of unknown exploration of a place and two people. The film avoids defining belonging, and focuses instead on the unfolding relationship to the place instead.
Director
Zara Huband
Zara is a Barcelona-based, documentary film director from London. She has directed two documentary shorts around migration, borders and performance. ‘Si cruzo’ tells the story of three young Moroccans who have recently moved to Barcelona and the challenges they face in the city. She co-directed it as part of a collective of filmmakers and it was screened on tv3. ‘Un corazón erotizado’ is the name of Quinny Mártinez Hernández’s collection of poetry and is a portrait of the poet, her experience as an Afro-Colombian woman living in Barcelona and how she connects those experiences to her poetry. Zara also directed and edited an experimental short called ‘Don’t Sweat It’, written by her brother in association with the mental health charity Mind. She has worked as a freelance documentary researcher and translator for companies such as Ronachan Films, Brother Film Co. and Yemaya Revista.
