Some good news to celebrate on a rainy day here in London!

More Than Blood has won an Impact DOCS Award for documentary short.
Thank you to my wonderful, talented teams in the UK and Africa who made this possible.

It has made me question the notion of impact, what does impact mean exactly?  How do we know whether our work has made any impact or not? Does impact mean leaving a mark on the viewer or for them to take action?

The objective when making More Than Blood, was to raise awareness of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) and to make people care about women dying in childbirth due to PPH, the leading cause of maternal mortality. 

The positive interpretation of impact is for the film to produce: effect, influence, reverberations, results, action.
For the film to impact the viewer: for them to remember what they have seen, learnt, felt and keep it in their heads and hearts.

I am pleased that our film has been recognised as such, leaving some traces of impact along the way: highlighting the tragic reality of women dying in childbirth.  

​

The Informed Pregnancy Project  is an organisation based in LA, which as its name suggests is all about  pregnancy and giving birth.  They have acquired More Than Blood for their new multi platform streaming channel dedicated to pregnancy, postpartum and parenting.

Dr. Elliot Berlin is the host of the Informed Pregnancy Podcast and here is a link to my first podcast interview with him. He is an award winning pregnancy focused chiropractor, childbirth educator, and labor doula.

It was extremely useful for me to talk to him about my work as a filmmaker and   birth doula as  I had never been asked to do this before… In the process, I was able to reflect and connect some of the dots that led me to where I am now.


To complement the interview, I wrote an article for their blog: Birth Doula - Film Doula: Birthing a film as a doula.


You can find the podcast interview for "More Than Blood"  here and the article I wrote on blog post here.

 We have the Land to  build NikumaKunzama...

2023 began with the joyful celebration of my beautiful, most precious grand-daughter Sol Aruna’s first birthday, with her wonderful Colombian family.

And then came the successful purchase of land in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta for NIKUMAKUNZAMA, Alexander Rojas’s dream project, for which I have been appointed International Director. 

This was made possible with the generous support of my awesome friends Trupti Magecha, Ivana Koralek, Myrto Stylou, Marie Struthers, Shelley Hermon, Sue Anderson and Aaron Quinn. Together we raised half of the budget needed to buy the land.

NIKUMAKUNZAMA’s intention is to unify the 4 main indigenous tribes of the Sierra Nevada and to build a University of Ancestral Medicinal Plants, to learn directly from the Mamos (Spiritual leaders) for healing and for much more...

Don Daniel and his loving family welcomed me into their world, sharing so much with me, creating magical experiences, moments and memories.

I spent a lot of time hanging out in his home in Don Diego (off the main coastal road no 90), where he lives with his wife Maritza, one of their daughters and her family and four of their grand-children.

With my basic Spanish, I was still not able to communicate in the way I would have liked to, which at times was extremely frustrating and isolating. However, I bonded easily with the children through playing and sharing - universal language that all children understand - and became very attached to them all, especially to one of his grand-sons Esneider, who celebrated his 10th birthday whilst I was there. 

Esneide was very keen to learn from his grandfather and accompanied him wherever he went, as much as possible.  It was obvious that he was a natural disciple and possibly a Mamo in the making, following in his grandfather’s footsteps.

More Than Blood has won a Humanitarian Award with Honourable Mention for Best Shorts Competition Film Festival and has been selected at the Women Directors Film Carnival, New Delhi India. 

Congratulations to my wonderful teams in the UK and Africa!!

​Starting in the UK for the stunning animation Riitta Hakkarainen created for the film, the beautiful original score by Vasilis Alevizos and Anibal Vidal Astroza and the special editing touches by Lisa Cazzato Vieyra. 

Thank you Nigeria:
Moji Makanjuola - Producer/Director - for the use of footage from her documentary productions.

Thank you Kenya: 
Filmmaker: Wanjeri Gakuru
DOP & Sound recordist - Mwakesi Mwakale
Transcription - Franklin Ogeto Kikuyu
Translation - Njeri Josto

Thank you Tanzania: 
Filmmaker: Sabrina Najib Zahor
Camera Man: Aman Justine Swai
Camera Man: Geofrey E. Mwangalika
Translation: Benazir Kurji

I was over the moon to be able to attend The International Film Festival The Hague, the first festival I was attending post covid pandemic.  It was a great opportunity to meet passionate filmmakers, feel the film buzz, and see a diversity of films which I would never have seen otherwise. 

Even better was the wonderful surprise news of winning a Best Runner-up Documentary award  for More Than Blood.

Well done to the whole team in London, starting with the stunning animation Riitta Hakkarainen created for the film, the beautiful original score by Vasilis Alevizos and Anibal Vidal Astroza and the special editing touches by Lisa Cazzato Vieyra.

And very happy to have made two new filmmaker friends Tineke Vanveen and Brenda Malley ...all 3 of us sharing a special moment celebrating our awards and women power!!

Some good news to share on the film festival circuit:
More Than Blood has been selected at the International Women’s Film Festival Denmark.

​Finally More Than Blood is out in the world with French and Spanish subtitled versions.

I am deeply grateful for the amazing team I worked with who helped bring it to life.








Riitta Hakkarainen  for her stunning animation.
Lisa Cazzato for her outstanding editing skills and sharpness.
Vasilis Alevizos & Anibal Vidal for their beautiful and wonderful original music.
Victoria Iyabosola Olawoye & Bisi Olawoye, sister and brother voice-over team.
Vivek Rajkhowa as my assistant researcher.
Two of my wonderful MA (Film & TV) students: Ben Crawford for extra camera and Lucy Clark as production assistant.

The very long list of credits continues at the end of the film with the teams who helped in Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria.

It means a lot to me that my first documentary Amazons in Saris was screened with a Q&A, as part of  - On the Edge of the Fold - at the Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image, almost 20 years after releasing it in 2001.

At the same time it is very disturbing and sad to know that the situation for Dalits in India, who now number almost 200 million, has barely improved.  The caste system is still discriminatory and used to oppress Dalits.

- On the Edge of the Fold - is a programme of films made by independent voices, representing a diversity of approaches, topics and stories from Dalits in India, curated by Viknesh Kobinathan. 

A 2001 study shows that more than half of the 80 million Dalit women in India experienced violence and abuse in their daily lives, primarily from dominant caste males. When French-Indian filmmaker Rani Khanna came across an image of a group of Dalit women in Bihar, who had embarked on a armed struggle against their oppressors, she was struck by their resistance and embarked on a quest to find them. While, corruption, mistrust and lack of safety mar her attempts at gaining access at every step, Khanna goes on a personal journey, where she comes across remarkable individuals who embody the fighting spirit of the armed Dalit women whom she never gets to meet. The film’s strength lies in its sincerity as Khanna grapples with her position as an outsider to the communities she faces, and the need for truthful documentation.

Coined by the 19th century Indian social activist and thinker, Jyotiba Phule, the Marathi word Dalit (meaning crushed, broken) is a descriptor for people who were considered untouchables by the Hindu caste system. This term then took on a more progressive and political term from the early 20th century with social reformer Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, at the height of the Indian nationalist movement, as a form of solidarity against caste oppression and colonialism. In India today, discrimination against Dalits is still a very pertinent issue, especially when observed in tandem with the rise of extreme right-wing Hinduism. Unequal opportunities in work and education, violence, abuse and denial of basic human rights plague these communities all through the country. Furthermore, Dalit experiences and narratives are generally either excluded or portrayed in an unfavorable light in mainstream media. However, the democratisation of digital technology and means of production in the past two decades have seen an increase and proliferation of literature and films that document Dalit experiences, opening up spaces for Dalit narratives to take root and thrive. On the Edge of the Fold is a programme of films made by independent voices, representing a diversity of approaches, topics and stories from Dalit India.