Telegraphe Congolais

The Goma Bureau of the Goma Film Project is OPEN

Habari gani vijama!

The Goma Film Project is once again open for business, working out of a lovely office in the Vodacom building, downtown Goma. I fear no one will read this as I stopped writing in the blog a while ago. There was a busy late summer, in which we sent the film (a work-in-progress) to the IFP market in New York, met with the documentary distributors we needed to, and prepared for round 2 of filming in Goma. And here we are. It's all still here-- the mototaxi congestion, the greedy officials, the serenity of the lake, the imposing shadow of the volcano, the beauty of Maji Matulivu, Jo and Lyn's house.

Enter the previous tripod (me, BJ, Nelson), followed by our new editor, Lynn, and a credit-card destroying mound of hard drives, wireless shotgun mikes, batteries, imacs, and baby clothes for the orphans. We all trickled in to Kigali separately-- I was surcharged and searched in several cities on the way (no love for KLM or Nairobi airport)-- and took the magnificent Okapi minibuses to Goma. BJ got here first and really softened the landing by finding an office and arranging a million things. Lynn is a trooper, on her first trip to Africa, unflinching at the sight of soldiers and their careless swinging of Kalashnikovs...

Goma seems a little less tense than last year. All is well so far... more updates soon I hope (writing is a slog for me these days for some reason).

And sorry no video updates. I'm an internet novice, and I'm working on it. Uploading is much harder with this glacially-paced connection.

Kwaheri...

posted by LouisAntoine @ 3:56 AM