My new documentary, The Human Story, premiered on YouTube on 28 September, 2021.
The Human Story documentary explores the effects of the COVID-19 virus on women and how they coped with household chores and taking care of their families while some were also working during the first and second lockdowns. As at the time of filming in May 2021, the virus had claimed the lives of over 2.71 million people, and by the time we wrapped up filming in August 2021, over 4.55 million people had sadly died.
The devastation and uncertainty of the pandemic are so pervasive that losing lives was one of the visual aspects of the virus. The hidden cost of the disease lies in lost jobs, shuttered businesses, economic devastation, and a mental health crisis that is seething underneath nations trying to crawl out of static survival mode to some form of normalcy. Every nation of the world is trying to claw back their dignity, and people are still struggling.
The core message of The Human Story is encouraging women to take care of themselves and their mental health. There is hope for everyone going through depression, fear, and anxiety; however, the first thing is recognising that one needs help.
Anxiety and fear are so common now that it’s been trivialised, and they shouldn’t be. Recent events, such as the brutal murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, are preying on people’s minds. I had to go out yesterday in the night, and while coming back home, I was extra careful. Although I wasn’t afraid, many women aren’t as bold as I am, and it’s scary if we feel unsafe in our own city. A colleague once told me she’s afraid of going out at night in London.
As a Londoner, I tried to defend my town, but my voice sounded hollow because I think she was right deep down. Violence against women is increasing. Fourteen women have lost their lives in London since Sarah Everard’s brutal murder and it makes for grim reading. We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.
However, despite everything, I believe we can defeat fear and live freely. I hope many women will live better, stronger, and more stress-free lives while in every single moment of their lives.
We can change the story of racial inequality through love, tolerance and kindness
‘Chasing Humans’ is a short poetic film that explores a woman’s fears concerning the upsurge of crime in London. The film also portrays how the loss of her first son two days after birth becomes the platform to rethink and challenge negative stereotypes associated with ethnic minorities in London and UK as a whole.
There are always two sides to a story. In the media, we always read, watch, and see the ‘single-story’ narration of young black men as gang members and violent individuals. The film wanted to change that perception and also spread the message of love and tolerance in our society where systemic and institutional racism will be eradicated and having a darker skin tone will not be a hindrance to living a fulfilled life.
My son and I
The film further explores the relationship between mothers and sons and how the bond of love in families could stem or change the tide of the senseless killings of young people in the country. Knife crime and violence are rampant in London and the rest of the UK, and we want this film to give hope and spread the message of love and tolerance.
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
Albert Einstein
In the height of ’Jihadi John’ reign of terror, the Islamic State executioner who derives satisfaction in executing mainly journalists, that image stuck in my mind because it was widely available online.
However, it has been replaced with Derek Chauvin, the Minnesota murderer, grinding his knee into George Floyd’s neck while the poor man cried for mercy. When Jihadi John murdered several innocent journalists, mostly whites. I was angry and wrote about the atrocities of ISIS. It has come as a surprise that people are eerily silent about the murder of George Floyd.
There are so many terrorists like that in the US, terrorising the lives of African Americans. Killing them with impunity, and if prosecuted, Jury always finds them doing their job.
Derek Chauvin and other terror cops that have killed so many innocent black people are inhuman. But the brilliant thing about civilization is this; change is constant!
Mel Gibson is undoubtedly an excellent actor, director and filmmaker. I love three of his films (or maybe four?), and I am striving to emulate his directorial success. Dreams come true and with my sunny personality thrown in for good measure, and a lot of hard work, it’s just a matter of time. Okay, let’s start on the journey of films I want to make from Mel Gibson’s directorial and acting career.
The first one is:
The Passion of the Christ is one of the best historical and Biblical films ever made. I will enjoy making this movie. Made in 2004, the film grossed $622.3 million at the Box office, not bad for a movie many people who are not even Christians flocked to see. People could see the reason Jesus Christ died for our sins, and it made Him real.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As a director, Mel Gibson gave his all. He saw raw talents in Jim Caviezel, the actor who played Christ and used it appropriately. The film detailed the final 12 hours before the death of Christ, comprising the Passion, which was appropriately the title. The film begins with the agony of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, his subsequent betrayal by the cowardly Judas Iscariot and the nightmarish flogging at the pillar before His crucifixion. The suffering of his mother, Mary, was elaborately detailed.
Mel Gibson has this to say about the film:
This is a movie about Love, Hope, Faith and forgiveness. Jesus dies for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It’s time to get back to that basic message. The world has gone nuts. We could all use a little more Love, Faith Hope and forgiveness.”
Mel Gibson
Mr Gibson is right about the lofty visions he had for the film. However, the film divided critics, with many calling it ‘anti-Semitism’ and that the film portrayed Jews in an awful light in the brutal way they treated Jesus. But one thing is certain, ‘The Passion of the Christ‘ is currently the most successful Christian film of all time. I’ve also got it on good authority that there would be a sequel. I got that intel while researching the film.
The film ended with a brief glimpse of Jesus’s Resurrection and we heard the defeat in the devil’s voice when he shrieked out in pain; he lost the battle, and Christ has the keys of Hades. And boy! Was I thrilled when I learnt that the sequel of the film is coming out? I was, and I am looking forward to it.
Jim Caviezel. Photo credit: Google
The sequel aptly titled, ‘The Resurrection’ is in the works and would be out soon. Although Jim Caviezel is tight-lipped about the release date, which I heard would be in 2021. According to the Express, it’s still in a draft phase. And writer Randall Wallace will pen the new flick. Hopefully, by 2021, the film will hit theatres around the world. So, ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is one of Mel Gibson films I would love to make.
The second one is:
Braveheart: It’s a film about the struggle for Scotland’s independence, and William Wallace played by Mel Gibson, cool isn’t it? And as per his signature mark, Gibson made it so brutal, and I couldn’t watch when he was been quartered, and disembowelled by the English, gory!
(Photo credit: IMDb)
I am not following in the right order. It should have been Braveheart before The Passion of the Christ in that order. Or well, it’s my blog, I can do whatever I want. Okay, let’s get back on track. I would have made Braveheart first, I would not have acted the lead role. There was a lot of violence in the film.
King Edward invaded Scotland in 1280 after the death of Alexander III of Scotland. The problem started when Alexander left no heir to the throne, and after his death, King Edward ‘Longshanks’ jumped at the opportunity to enslave the Scots. The rest of the gory affair followed Wallace’s gallant’s attempt to rally Scotland’s clans to fight the insufferable English King. Especially after the murder of his wife, whom he married secretly. I won’t narrate the entire plot, watch it!
The last scene of Braveheart was genuinely inspiring. A moment of mourning and humiliating surrender. But the Scots warriors released their shame. Harnessing their focus on the charge to fight the English… That beautiful charge. Showing us what humans can do. And it’s true; when you have nothing else to rely on, except your own strength, you can surprise yourself
Samuel David
The film scooped five academy awards after it was nominated for ten awards. The film grossed $210 million dollars worldwide after making using the paltry sum of $65 million to make the film. I would have been smiling to the bank if I made that film. Oh well, I have to start somewhere, which I did with ‘Chasing Humans’. I’ll prefer to keep our expenses under wraps and what we grossed at the British Box office.
William Wallace did (you should have noticed on the poster) but he rallied the clans to fight against the English. Mission accomplished!
The third Mel Gibson’s film I wanted to make was the American war of independence, The Patriot and Apocalypto. Oh yeah, before you all go for my neck, I wanted to make it three but Mel is so good at making freedom films, and who doesn’t like that? The Americans chased the English out (yeah; we lost) and in Apocalypto, true love won, and the Mayans lost.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
The Patriot is not everyone’s cup of tea. In the film, Britain owned a large swathe of the world, and they weren’t too keen to leave America. But the Americans wanted them out. There was a nasty war, with the terrible British Colonel Tavinton, who probably committed atrocities that painted the British in an unflattering light.
There are certain parts of the film that I love. Heath Ledger’s role was moving. I’ve watched the film at least five times. May I add I don’t have a penchant for blood, it just so happens that there’s always blood in battle. I’ve dreamt that I was in Roland Emmerich’s chair as the director, bellowing instructions, watching the clips as the actors fought with fake blood and directing the cast, staring at the reels, and watching for authenticity. Making several cuts, retaking several scenes with gallons of fake blood. I think everyone should watch The Patriot, I would have enjoyed making the film.
Apocalypto is a 2006 movie in my lineups of films by Mel Gibson I would have loved to make. It’s a historical/adventure film. Mel used an array of Mexican actors such as Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Raoul Trujillo, and Mayra Serbulo. I also loved the premise of the plot. The budget for the film was $40 million, and it made thrice that in theatres.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
I love the cast, the making of the film, and if I were to write the script or direct this film, I couldn’t have done better. I watched the making of the film mesmerised as the designers made each traditional piece of jewellery. It was a painstaking task.
The plot of the film is about the decline of the Mayan empire around 1502. The film centered on Jaguar Paw and was set in Yucatan, Mexico. Jaguar’s village was invaded, his father slain, and then the invaders captured Jaguar Paw with every male member of his tribe. The film detailed his journey through the perilous jungle as he tried to escape the slavery gang. The film was a rousing success, grossing over $120 million worldwide.
Although Mel Gibson’s life wasn’t perfect, I am a fan of his movies and directorial achievements. I would love to direct some films that would get movie goers talking positively about the lessons they have learnt. However, dreams require hard work, and I am determined to give it my all.
I watched the unveiling of the Cheddar man open-mouthed on Channel 4 recently. I wasn’t expecting to see a black skin blue-eyed man as the first Brit. Who is the Cheddar man you may ask?
Excavated in 1903, the Cheddar man is a Mesolithic skeleton discovered at Gough’s cove in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset. Museum scientists extracted the ancient DNA from the skeleton, and we could finally glimpse the oldest modern human in Britain. The surprising fact was, he looked different from what we would have expected. The nuclear DNA extracted from the skeleton shows that his genetic marker was an accurate mark from those from sub-Saharan Africa. His skeleton was almost complete and is from our species, Homo Sapiens, ever found in Britain.
That museum scientists traced Cheddar man’s DNA to sub-Saharan Africa, and that floored me (that was not my phrase, my daughter would have said that). You can easily find out more about this story on BBC archives or YouTube.
We expect the first Brit to look like one of these men. Not a dark skin dude! (Photo credit: Flickr)
Society and the media have conditioned our minds to behave and believe certain things, just as it surprised me that the first man in modern Britain was a Black man, (I shouldn’t really be surprised. We all know the story of evolution, or don’t we?). However, I want to delve a bit into the single-story structure coined by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie during her Ted talk in 2009.
This village is in Africa, is that true? So, why don’t you believe me? (Photo credit: Flickr)
Chimamanda Adichie believes that a single-story is reporting events/story the same way every time, without deviating or adding other factors into the narration. It’s like having a linear view of the world. That’s not very bright, is it? For example, some people actually believe that Africa is a country, whereas it is a continent. It is intellectually lazy to assume that Africa is a country. It is not. In all honesty, we often make these mistakes with several things. I am guilty of that too, making assumptions before knowing all the facts of a case or an argument.
“I’m obsessed with giving the audience something they don’t see coming.” – Jordan Peele, writer and director of Get Out
Jordan Peele
That is the reason I enjoyed watching the film, ‘Get Out’ by Jordan Peele. The ending was unexpected. He added twists to the plot that when it ended, I had to watch it again to be certain I got all the clues. I enjoy discovering new things or an uncommon pattern to a story. It is convenient and very easy to use a single story narration. Specifically, I wanted to change that narration when I wrote and directed the documentary Chasing Humans.
Society naturally associates black kids with gang culture and knife crime. I am not deflecting the fact that knife crime is a problem, especially in London. Nor do I condone such criminal activities and any teenager that committed such crimes should face the full wrath of the law. However, when every black teen is demonised and categorised as a drug dealer, then I have a problem with that narration and it starts with the media.
There are many successful black kids (as a mother, I can attest to that fact). However, when we listen to stories of knife crimes and don’t highlight their achievements, it may creep into their consciousness that society’s view of them is twisted, and that can propel a destructive behaviour. There would always be some of these kids who are not keen to change from their antisocial behaviour but grouping those kids together with the hardworking ones among them will cause tensions to rise. The image ingrained in our subconsciousness that inner-city kids are dangerous and must be tamed is not true.
Citing an example, the young man in the picture below is studying Construction Engineering at Birmingham university while his mother is a Midwife. She is one of the NHS Key workers fighting that faceless but dangerous virus in our country. Rafael spoke passionately about stereotypes in the Chasing Humans documentary.
Rafael Benedetti struggled with the image of black kids being classified as inherently bad. His mother, Fay Benedetti refuse to accept society’s image of her son. (Credit: Chasing Humans Location)
He wanted to walk freely everywhere in the UK without feeling apprehensive or fearful. In line with that, here’s a quick story for you.
Imagine this scenario:
It’s twelve midnight. A 65-year-old smartly dressed man in a black suit walked through the tiny alley which led to his house in Hackney. He clutched a black suitcase, his brown eyes darting back as he walked to the street which led to his house. His sharp eyes caught sight of two men walking towards him from afar. He stopped briefly, frozen, then took quick steps and covered the few metres to his front door. His breath was coming in gasps, adrenaline pumping through his veins.
The next morning, policemen came knocking on the man’s door. They found the bodies of two men and were asking everyone in the neighbourhood if they had seen or heard anything suspicious.
While reading this story, one could quickly jump to the conclusion that the man was in trouble because of his age or how smart he looked. He may attract the attention of muggers whereas he was a sadistic serial killer, who prowled the night looking for victims.
In my upcoming projects, I want to challenge people’s perceptions about perceived truths and that rigid way of thinking. Which would bring me this strange news which might give an inkling to how powerful the media is, and the reason we should all fight against inciting hatred.
Steven Emerson’s claims (Credit: YouTube)
A terrorism expert, Steven Emerson once claimed on America’s news Channel, Fox News that non-Muslims don’t go to Birmingham. He added:
In Britain, it’s just not no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslim just simply don’t go in.
And parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.
Steven Emerson
This interview was an outright lie. I have lived in London for almost two decades, and there is nothing like what Emerson just described. It was a complete fabrication. I can’t even categorise his comment as a single-story narration because it’s just lies. And that is very dangerous when a so-called expert can go live on air and spurt such fabrications.
And moving from that to the single-story narration. It hit home one day when my youngest son asked me if there were roads in Africa. His ignorance appalled me, and I accept part of the blame because he may not have been taught in school that there were roads in Africa (although that’s unbelievable). One of his best animation films is ‘Lion King,’ and that left me wondering; I can’t remember seeing a skyscraper near Mufasa’s Pride land. It was a film about animals in an African jungle. It is my job to teach him about Africa, and my cultural heritage, and I did. He now knows so much about the continent, and he is adept at doing his research after I showed him a few pointers.
If my son could not believe that there were roads in African countries, how do I change that perception as his mother? I may shoot a documentary about Africa and not the usual forests and exotic animals depicted in films about the continent. I may also shoot films that truly celebrate and depict the beauty of Africa and its people. Not the rugged wilderness shown in countless films nor remote Kenyan villages where pot-bellied African kids run after goats in the sun, with Zebras in the background.
My youngest son and I (My photos)
There are unique ways of telling a story and I want to tell a story with a fresh perspective using my cameras.
I think it’s convenient to use a single-story narration. The press has also contributed to this fallacy. They always show images that make us believe developing countries (formerly called the third world countries), a phrase coined by Alfred Sauvy in 14th September 1952 in the French Magazine, L’Observateur during the Cold War to define countries not aligned to the communist bloc. Unfortunately, that term stuck, but it is a term people hardly use now. Subtly put, there are many laudable and positive stories that people don’t know about Africa because bad news sells.
Developing countries are rich and hardworking. Seeing the story through a new lens would make a difference, and that is what I want to achieve.
Changing the narration we are used to in the West will be tough, but I can do it. That was the reason I wrote the script for Chasing Humans. Through telling genuine stories, through films. Many people may not read a book, but they would gladly watch a movie or a documentary.
Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. Everything after that you’re just negotiating your budget and your fee.
Scientists have now issued a warning that in a couple of decades, some parts of our planet may become uninhabitable. I beg to differ. Some parts of our world are already uninhabitable. Our patched, long-suffering planet has endured human’s degradations for millennia; we don’t care about our world; we hate each other and are so quick to point out our differences. Perhaps I am doing the same thing, but this article is meant to be constructive.
I don’t mean for this article to pander to any group of people but everyone. Recently, I watched a film titled, ‘Knowing’ and it’s about our world being destroyed by a massive solar flare which inevitably made the earth uninhabitable and in a creepy twist of fate, scientists are echoing the same thoughts. They are not predicting a solar flare will obliterate our world as we know it, they are warning us about climate change, but what they aren’t telling us to change is our attitude to everything on this planet.
Why do this? Humanity has descended so low that everything is about race and religion, and this is so sad. I wanted to write an article about love, bravery, and selflessness, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to do so. A young boy lost his life in a house fire today in South East London, and yet on Yahoo, people were commenting on the colour of his skin and his parents’ race? It’s unbelievably sad.
There’s divisive politics, people hate with their eyes but smile with their teeth. We are so petty and care only for ourselves. We satisfy our cravings for depravities in the most deplorable fashion possible. It’s laughable.
I am keen to see a time when we would truly love one another with no inhibitions. Sadly, it’s a human condition. We are suspicious and find it difficult to relate to people who don’t look or think like us. However, there is that basic instinct that connects us all, our DNA. It differentiates us from animals, the ability to think, feel and vocalise our emotions through words. Maybe animals love and feel (I’m not an expert on that) but not on our level, and I suppose the ability to express our feelings should make us a better entity. We should be able to take care of our environment and the people around us.
I am an optimist, but just as our earth is groaning under the burden of our selfishness and nonchalant attitude toward climate change, maybe we will finally be able to do something together and eschew our petty differences.
A Writer with a Camera 