April 1- 7, 2004

special x

Making the Connection

GET TOGETHER: (l-r) Filmon Mebrahtu, Siddiq Hadi, and Tiguida Kaba outside La Calabasse, a popular meeting place for Philadelphia's African community. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Rencontrer explores the ties that bind West Philly's African community.

by Elisa Ludwig

What strikes you first about Rencontrer, Filmon Mebrahtu’s short-film portrait of the African immigrant community in Philadelphia, is the quiet. No music, no voiceover -- just the voice of a crossing guard hurrying young students across the street, the clatter of a storefront gate opening and the pneumatic hiss of a SEPTA trolley. Then the camera settles on Hadja Fanta, an elderly woman in traditional dress, working in her yard. As she hangs clothes on a line and picks weeds from her garden, pointing out the collard greens and peppers, the only soundtrack is the birds in her back yard.

Even by slice-of-life documentary standards, Rencontrer feels unusually honest. Driving home from work, Tiguida Kaba, an immigrant from Senegal, talks about the restaurant she opened when she first came to Philadelphia. She used to feed anyone who came in, whether they could pay for their meal or not, she says, describing the ways in which the Africans she knows help one another. She pauses, looking pensive, and the camera lingers on her face as she gazes out the window of her car. It's such a private moment that you realize how rarely contemplation is allowed to hang unedited on the screen.

First shown in segments as part of the Africa Film Series at International House, Rencontrer will be screened as part of the Festival of Independents on Fri., April 16. Rencontrer is French for "to meet," and while each of the film's six pieces focuses on one person, they're linked together by interpersonal connections. Tiguida visits Hadja after a Friday morning mosque service, and then the camera follows Tiguida to work. Tiguida then stops by a braiding salon, where we're introduced to owner Dieneba Kane, who holds a baptism for her goddaughter. The DJ at the baptism is Ishmael Diawara, who has plans to open a restaurant. When Ishmael goes to a public meeting with Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, he encounters Siddiq Hadi, a local businessman and founder of the community organization Africom. Only the last segment, which features a former taxi-cab driver named Ngara Balde, does not have an immediate, logistical link to the previous "chapters."

Rencontrer was made by WYBE and Reel Voices, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to "express and document diverse cultural experiences." Founder and executive director Filmon Mebrahtu is a self-taught filmmaker who was born in Eritrea and moved to Philadelphia in 2000. In his documentaries, Mebrahtu uses his camera to give voice to immigrants who might otherwise only be heard within their own insular communities. "We shouldn't need war, famine or AIDS to get to know somebody. But how do you know Africans? You know them through the Rwandan massacre or through the AIDS crisis," says Mebrahtu. "For me that's a driving force. I want you to meet these people in their natural circumstance with no major drama lurking overhead."

The African community in Philadelphia currently numbers between 40,000 and 55,000 people, the majority of immigrants coming from Nigeria, Liberia, Ethiopia and Ghana. But the population is expanding, with more transplants from Sudan and the Côte d'Ivoire. "In 1992 there were 28 Sudanese people here. When we had a soccer practice we had to borrow players from the Ethiopians and the Eritreans to play," says Siddiq Hadi, the businessman and community organizer who appears in the film. "Now we're talking about 1,100 Sudanese people in Philadelphia."

It's obvious when you visit La Calabasse, a Senegalese restaurant on Baltimore Avenue, that the local African population is thriving. Hadi, Kaba and Mebrahtu are among dozens gathered here on a recent weekday afternoon. Steaming plates of thiebou, the lilting sounds of French chatter and the promise of connecting with other Africans make it an attractive place to gather. In fact, the bustling overwhelms our attempts to talk, and we have to continue our interview outside.

While some Philadelphians might get a glimpse of the African community through restaurants like La Calabasse and other businesses, there is a lack of real awareness about immigrant life here, says Mebrahtu. Many of the people we meet as cab drivers and restaurant owners were doctors and businessmen in Africa. In Senegal, Tiguida Kaba had a gardener and a cook, and was driven to work by a chauffeured Mercedes. "I was serving the people who back home were serving me," she says. "A friend saw me washing dishes and she was crying, asking, "What happened to you?' The people here don't know me. But I decided I was going to stay anyway, I would wash dishes, whatever I could do to stay."

Between the six different portraits, Mebrahtu captures a depth of emotion and a range of attitudes toward living in America. Hadja Fanta gardens as a way to connect with her indigenous culture, fighting against the expectation that she stay at home and watch TV while she waits for her brother and grandchildren to come home. Ngara Balde, one of the strongest voices in the film, adamantly insists that he will never feel at home in America; he dreams only of returning to Guinea. Siddiq Hadi says that immigrants should participate as much as possible in the life of the city, and he works with Africom to provide resources for new businesses and residents.

In one of the film's most moving moments, Hadi describes the violence and brutality he witnessed in Sudan. We later see him working on Election Day 2003 with a group of volunteers chanting "four more years," as the results of Street's re-election are posted on television.

Without congratulatory fanfare, the film quietly depicts the ways in which Hadi and others have contributed to Philadelphia. Tiguida Kaba, who lost her restaurant because of a lack of experience with the "system," has turned her attention to helping others navigate a different system, the city's public health centers. We watch her help a woman who was mistakenly denied treatment from the Women Infant and Children (WIC) office. While some of the film's subjects talk about loneliness and the difficulty of finding their way in the U.S., nearly everyone speaks of the importance of keeping ties with the community. "Meeting" is a means of survival.

Mebrahtu, who says that he is not an issue-driven filmmaker, followed his subjects around closely for one day apiece, with little plan but to get their experiences on film. "I guess at some point I just had to be confident that once I went in, I would find something that resonates. I kind of like the fact that it is organic. For instance, when I first started talking to Ishmael, I knew he came from a long line of musicians and initially I thought that would be his story, but then he started mentioning his restaurant and that became the story."

Standing by non-intrusively, Mebrahtu learned more about the people he was filming and the process encouraged them to open up. Hadi, for instance, had never before talked about some of the disturbing experiences he mentions on camera.

Mebrahtu plans to make a similar set of short films about African artists in Philadelphia, which he hopes to show in conjunction with the "African Art, African Voices" exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in October. He is also working on a full-length film due out in the summer. In that project, he follows three south Sudanese refugees, who also record their own video diaries.

"The immigrant experience is told and retold," says Mebrahtu. "But with each group, the culture's different; the people are different. Each story is different."

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there