Where Are You Taking Me?

Where Are You Taking Me? is a film that speaks to the beauty and rhythms of everyday life in Uganda. The film charts my travels through Uganda, from the kinetic energy of urban life to the tranquility of rural areas. In exploring the nuances of everyday life, the film challenges the dominant and prevailing images of Africa that focus only on the horrors of war, poverty, and AIDS. Outside of East Africa, there are very few representations of Uganda that reach beyond the sensational and stereotypical. In contrast, Where Are You Taking Me? offers unexpected images of a complex country, and challenges viewers pre-conceived notions of where we are going and what we will find.

Where Are You Taking Me? was commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands, as part of a special series on African Cinema. Twelve international filmmakers, who had never traveled to Africa before, were invited to visit different African countries, research the local film scene, and facilitate connections between local filmmakers and the Rotterdam Film Festival curator, Gertjan Zuilhof. Both local filmmakers and foreign filmmakers were then commissioned to make work in a particular country and given complete artistic license.

I was particularly excited to participate in this project because my film work often deals with various kinds of cross-cultural encounters. I’m interested in the meeting point, when people from different cultures come together and search for a mode of communication. My work often explores the process of “looking” cross-culturally and the interplay between the observer and the observed. I went to Uganda without a specific agenda or set of expectations. As a one-person crew, I had a great deal of flexibility with my time and method of working. Rather than execute a specific plan, fraught with expectation, I responded to what unfolded and emerged during the journey. Often, I would station myself in a particular place and observe with my camera. Over a period of time interesting interactions would surface as people approached me and interacted with the camera; these relationships were constantly changing and in flux. A group of children might initially clamor for attention but then become bored and move on. I was interested in this interplay between observation and engagement, voyeurism and intimacy.

Where Are You Taking Me? is primarily an observational film; there is no voice-over narrating the journey. No translations are provided. No attempt is made to explain or definitively inform the viewer about Uganda. Instead, the film re-constructs my sensory impressions of people and places, by concentrating on the images, details, colors and sounds that left an impact: a high society wedding, bustling city streets, a nightclub filled with music and laughter. The film captures moments of visual inter-connection and disconnection---voyeuristic fascination and fleeting intimacy. Throughout the journey my presence as a filmmaker is constantly felt through the eyes of the camera---looking and being looked back at.

Where Are You Taking Me? is a question that applies to the viewer, the Ugandans in the film, and to myself, as the filmmaker. For the subjects represented within the documentary the question “Where are you taking me?” also moves beyond curiosity into a confrontation of the politics and ethics of the documentary contract. How will these images be disseminated and consumed? Sometimes the question registers in a subject’s eyes, less often it is stated—as it is several times in this film. It is an inquiry that can never be fully answered, and one that implicates both the filmmaker and audience.

Where Are You Taking Me? invites the viewer to come along on a journey to Uganda—to watch, to listen, to experience and to reflect.