“Now my guide was not the dialogue, my guide was the character-driven emotions,” the director said.
As a veteran documentary filmmaker, Duval also said he brought a lot of documentary techniques to shooting a fictional story.
Duval said he felt a deep personal connection to the film’s script, written by Marie Vien, the adoptive mother of two girls, one from China and one from Vietnam. In fact, he was hooked after reading a one-page description of the story.
“I would say I am first a father, of two young boys, and also my sister adopted a little boy from China 15 years ago,” Duval said. “I was very engaged in that story, and I was very touched by this quest of Isabelle. There were a lot of levels and layers in that story.”
What led you to make a film about this subject?
When we began this process in 2013, we never imagined where this journey would take us. We were simply curious to explore the oral history of the coast of Kenya and learn more about Maia’s “Mijikenda” roots (the nine tribes that make up the coast of Kenya.)
We had begun researching the story of a female freedom fighter called Mekatilili wa Menza who led an armed uprising against the British in 1913 at the age of 70, and was persecuted as a witch by the colonial administration. As we traveled to the coast of Kenya, collecting this oral history from the elders, they also told us about the witchcraft accusations happening today, with many of (the elderly) chased from their families and press reporting that up to 10 elders were being killed every month.