Present at the online interview were the directors: Pietra Brettkelly (New Zealand), Raymond J. Yusuff, Richard Yusuff, Ronald Yusuff, Godwin Josiah, Victor Josiah (Nigeria)
Barbara Wurm (BW): Welcome, Pietra. Welcome, The Critics. It's such an honor to have your film in our lineup. This is the film from the Forum that is recommended by Generation, a section aimed at a younger audience. So your film will also be rated for a younger audience from age 14. I'm very happy that this interview can take place, and I’ll leave it to my two dear colleagues, Christiane Büchner and Jutta Doberstein.
Christiane Büchner (CB): I’ll start with a question to The Critics: How did you meet Pietra?
Raymond J. Yusuff (RJY): Through the internet, actually. She was trying to reach out to us, and we initially ignored her. But: Oh, this person is persistent. So we responded, and less than a month later, she was with us in Nigeria. This was about seven or eight years ago.
Pietra Brettkelly (PB): I kept on trying, right, Raymond? I'm really tenacious. I think they must have thought: Who the heck is that?
CB: Why did you reach out?
PB: At the time, I was interested in the reclamation of indigenous languages – I’m active as a speaker and student in New Zealand of our indigenous language, Māori, and with my Irish heritage our family has lost my grandfather’s language. And I was reading about the difference between African futurism and Afrofuturism. I read about The Critics and as a filmmaker, when I hear of something, I don't try to analyze why I'm interested. I just act. Here was a group of young people, who were finding their voice – and potentially their culture – through filmmaking. And so I turned up in Nigeria. As soon as I got there, I could see a coming-of-age story of how you find your voice in a culture where certain languages, as they say in the film, are disappearing – something really compelling, along with a search for creativity.
Jutta Doberstein (JD): Critics: how did Pietra pitch her project that you, as accomplished filmmakers in your own right already, decided to enter into that collaboration? What did it feel like to hand over control?
Godwin Josiah (GJ): From what I remember, we had a moment in social media that was quite beneficial to us at a point in time where we didn't understand what kind of filmmakers we were going to be. Here comes Pietra to make a documentary about us. And even though we were filmmakers already, we were still just kids and we didn't understand the weight of such a documentary. I thought about how interesting it would be to have a camera follow you. But it was totally not what happened with Pietra. We experimented with having an extra cameraman following us, but it was not working as well as it would work if we were filming ourselves. So we adopted that process instead. It didn't feel like handing out our lives to be directed by another person. It felt like a collaboration. She made it possible for us to just express ourselves. And now we have this very beautiful film.
CB: Practically speaking, you were filming yourself all the time. You had the archive of your early films, and you sent it to Pietra. Can you describe the collaboration?
RJY: We had been experimenting with filmmaking as far back as before 2013. And we had this idea of making a documentary about ourselves that we never realized. I think footage from that project is in the documentary now. We knew that it was going to be very difficult to be objective. So for Pietra to focus on the footage we gathered over the years would be the best way to go. She came to Nigeria a couple of times. We had to work in a more intentional way on documenting our lives. I feel like the best decision was Pietra controlling the narrative in the edit.
CB: You were already editing during this time?
PB: I started editing about two and a half years ago. Covid brought about something quite different in this film as opposed to my usual practice of full immersion. When I first met The Critics, I had to address the elephant in the room. I am this white person from the bottom of the world. Over the previous years, I’d been developing a more authentic and collaborative practice. Because of Covid it was going to be something completely new, as we were isolated in New Zealand for two years. How could I honor what they were capturing, what they decided to share with me? That has been the journey that I've been on while trying not ignore who I am.
How could I honor what they were capturing, what they decided to share with me?
The Critics have continued to make their own films. Yet with graciousness, they have carried on working on the documentary, too. Hopefully The Critics will feel that it is them up on the screen, their point of view as they chose the scenes to film and where to put the camera. In the beginning it was just me filming, gathering hours of footage and thinking, what is the story here? But with their filming, I saw such interesting storylines – a progression in their talent, this special relationship between Raymond and Godwin, and the exploration of creativity. For me, this process involved not pretending that I am a filmmaker from Nigeria. At one stage I had some classical music in a scene. What the hell was I thinking? I've made quite a few mistakes, that's for sure. But I think we've arrived.
JD: Usually, a documentary offers a lot of context. I love that this film doesn't. I feel I get a more direct idea of what's most urgent for anyone in your group Two takeaways: You really hate Nollywood. And you love J.J. Abrams. How did you find ‘your voice’ in between those two?
Ronald Yusuff (RY): Over the years our stance on Nollywood has changed. I'm still not very comfortable with this type of films, but we've worked with some of the filmmakers from Nollywood. We're constantly growing and trying to make better Nigerian films. We just prefer to call ourselves Nigerian filmmakers. For sure, I can say we don't hate Nollywood. We're just not very big fans of the type of films that come out of the industry. But now I'd say everybody's trying to tell better stories. We're trying to make films that contribute to that new ecosystem that is forming in Nollywood.
JD: How do you find your own language?
GJ: Just to add to what Ronald said, hate is a strong word. We just could not connect to the kind of films that were being made in Nollywood because we were kids from the age of 13 downwards. The kinds of films we wanted to create were being made in European and Asian cinema. Those were epic, blockbuster films. It also goes back to what our name represents. The Critics come from the idea that we are basically ‘anti’ – how do you say it? We wanted to be the film production company that better represents what Nigerian films can be. But as we've grown, we've found ourselves exploring parts of dramatic films where you don't even have any special effects showing up in the last 30 minutes of the film.
We just didn't identify with Nollywood growing up. Everything that you saw on the screen was romance and badly done dramatic films. But currently, I would really say that there are filmmakers who are making an effort to put authentic Nigerian stories out there and that gives Nollywood a very good representation. And with some of those films we are proud to be associated with.
And in terms of J.J. Abrams. Growing up, his films were what we aspired to make. Having the opportunity to have a conversation with him was enlightening. To understand that at the end of the day, these are people who create artworks and have daily lives. And it was a full on experience, to go to bed today in Kanduna State, Nigeria, and wake up the next morning to find that every single person you look up to is in your DM's [direct messages] telling you that you're doing great. And it's just really inspiring to know that you're next door to the things that have inspired your vision. J.J. Abrams sent us some equipment. We still use it to make our films.
CB: The first excerpts from your films that we see are already very elaborate. From the very beginning you knew that it's important to do it together, to form a label and to reach out in a professional way. Can you tell us something about these beginnings?
RJY: When we started making films, we were just doing what we loved, right? The older we got, we started asking the question why. I think that now we sort of understand. The only thing we knew then was YouTube. We would watch YouTube tutorials and release the film there. No structure, no agreements. It was just us having an idea and spending time and making something that we would be proud of and something we wanted people to be proud of.
When we started making films, we were just doing what we loved, right?
JD: What was the decision-making processes on what goes in and what stays out of the documentary? For example, the riots.
PB: The Critics were filming everything. Every day. I wrote a script, but I didn’t share it with anybody. There are points in all of our coming-of-age stories that we traverse: relationships, sexuality, politics, separation from parents. To some degree, I was waiting for the footage that would be the building blocks of this coming-of-age story. When this amazing footage came through from Godwin of his international journey, and the emotion I saw and felt in his delivery, I just thought, this is extraordinary. For The Critics, there is a bigger story here: how did they realize themselves as creative beings in their country? How did they represent their political realization through their film work? For me the footage reflects this restlessness I feel in them, a restlessness to grow and experiment, to be part of the international creative world. And that’s the word that guided me through this film – ‘restlessness’.
GJ: The riots were from a protest that happened all around Nigeria. It was a period when the younger generation of Nigeria collectively came together and stood together on the topic of harassment and being labeled a certain way, just for being an outgoing, hardworking, young person in the country. We were on the road and we had the camera. And it's this moment where you realize that it's so easy to be involved with yourself, involved with your emotions and your activities. But when I was standing there I realized that this could actually be something bigger than myself. It gives you goosebumps. I'm someone who rarely has such reactions. I tend to not be easily impressed by life. This is one of the things that have inspired me to take certain stance in my life. I think that moment was one of the reasons that made me understand the global aspect of politics in the world, how it plays out in Europe, how it plays out in America, and just understanding how we are governed by people who don't know better. And how that can be also catastrophic at the end of the day because it was a very sad time.
CB: Did you use the camera and this project also as a diary that helped you to deal with issues other than filmmaking, within the family, your parents and their ideas of your future, with religion?
Richard Yusuff: It was the enthusiasm about encapsulating our lives and capturing moments that meant so much to us from the onset. I think the documentary allowed us to engage and not just record ourselves, to record it for a cause. It's really beautiful being able to just sit back and see an encapsulation of our lives of the past seven years. Because I think not a lot of filmmakers or artists get to experience the progression of their careers. The art of documenting is very much imbibed into our process. And we used that as a metric to navigate life whilst being able to capture those memories.
JD: We witness some conversations within your family in which you talk quite openly about difficult issues like your future and sexual abuse. I was wondering if the presence of the camera actually facilitated that. Sometimes the camera helps to ask difficult questions. Pietra, you how did you experience the family?
PB: For me, the scenes with the families were really important. I spent a lot of time re-editing those scenes. The family meeting, where the auntie says, ‘We have to forgive him and bring him to Christ’ - it took me a long time to edit that. What are the priorities when you live in a place like Kaduna, where, as she says, you may need somebody again. In my country, if somebody wrongs you, there is a judicial system, and potentially I need never have anything to do with that person. But I could appreciate that in a place like Kaduna, a developing economy, there is perhaps a deeper interdependence to life. I also thought that what Richard said was incredibly important and brave. Were you 15 at the time, Richard? This is a young person saying this to his parents, to the people he most respects, his elders. There was something very, very powerful in that statement, and I needed to honor that.
RJY: It is very normal for us to have this type of conversation and family meetings, constantly. I would also like to add that in the context of that particular conversation, I think that the camera served as a form of protection for us. During that time, there was a lot of conversation about going to court, to the police, but it all proved futile because how do you tell people that this thing happened between this older man and younger children? At that point in time, the camera was protection for us. I think that's the interesting thing about film and cinema, that in the moment, there might be an intention, and as years pass by, it becomes something else. I feel that's really such a powerful scene in the film, too. Our religion teaches: you shouldn't cut off people. You have to be good with everybody. But I feel like we have to embrace not being good with everybody because we can't. And certain situations have to be taken seriously. And that's what we hope that scene helps people think about.
I think that's the interesting thing about film and cinema, that in the moment, there might be an intention, and as years pass by, it becomes something else.
CB: You wanted to make a career in filmmaking and you have the idea of cinema, that this is the way to go. We see this job in Lagos, the business. Suddenly we see a curator from Frankfurt Museum. What did you think? How did you experience the possibility of having cinema in a museum, in a gallery context?
RJY: I feel like that's one of the top moments in my life.
Victor Josiah (VJ): Growing up as filmmakers, we entered into situations spontaneously. We think of something and we do it. This film, TIMOTHÉE, we had placed for a competition. And we forced ourselves to make it before the deadline, but we missed it. We finished the film and just dropped it on YouTube. And about three to four years later, someone from the 7th Athens Bienniale reached out to screen the film. This is where Susanne Pfeffer, the curator from the Frankfurt museum, stumbled across this film. She was really impressed. She messaged, and we met in Abuja on my birthday. We had not done any exhibition at this time. So it was just this golden opportunity at the right time. And for most of us, it was our first time in Europe. It's crazy how beautiful the exhibition came out. You'd see some people shedding tears and we were like, Oh, is that good? I think our stay in Frankfurt was one of the main highlights in our lives. It's also beautiful to reflect back at what took us there, our passion to create regardless, even if we're not going to make the competition, we're still going to create.
RJY: There was never a plan. I think that any time we look back on that, the reminder is that the worst mistake that we can ever do is to stop. To not make these films.
JD: I have one final question for Pietra. Two and a half years of editing. It must have cost a fortune to finish this film in what usually we know as a documentary budget – how did you raise the money?
PB: So it's been seven years work on this, more than full-time. I do lots of fundraisers. I apply for hundreds of grants. I'm hustling all the time. I am hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt personally. I haven't lived in my apartment for seven years. At times, it's really belittling and really difficult. But I do believe strongly in documentary storytelling. In the end, you arrive at these amazing situations like this one right here, where I’ve met and worked with these amazing young people who have changed and enriched my life. And that makes it worthwhile. My grandmother used to pray that I would become a nun. I didn't. The Critics know about my feeling towards religion. But I've come to realize that documentary filmmaking is a calling, like my relatives have towards their faith and Catholicism. I love my work, every single day.
JD: And for The Critics: You’re entering a world, which is financially highly insecure. What's next for you? Do you have an idea of how you're going to navigate through all of this?
RJY: I feel like we have an idea, but we’re still working on it. I think that it is all rooted in one concept, that everything that has happened to us is not for us. It's not about us, and it's not for us, but for all the other young people here in Nigeria, in Africa, and all over the world. We are not in a very good place in terms of funding and making films, but I and my brothers, we want to make the most of it. What we are focusing on now is filmmaking and at the same time, film education, because there are no film schools yet, so we have to teach ourselves. One specific thing that we are working on now is our fiction feature. We are all going through the shared struggle of finding funding for films and trying to get them made. I hope that we can get to a point where it isn't too difficult to at least try to get these films made.
