Eva is a cheerful young Rwandan woman who works hard at school to become a pediatrician. Shortly before receiving her acceptance letter to university, her life is shattered forever when she is kidnapped by a stranger, who will become her husband from then on. Hers is one of the forced marriages that condemned women to live for decades with their captors and to be raped in the often complicit silence of their families.
That silence is what Myriam Birara (Masisi, Democratic Republic of Congo, 1992) portrays with chilling force, the filmmaker who has uncovered with her film Girlfriend a subject that is hardly discussed, even in her country. Those women abducted for marriage in the 1990s now have children who are unaware that their father forced their mother to live with him under the same roof.
Birara, whose debut film received a special mention at the Berlinale last year, is, like other African filmmakers, self-taught and details in an interview during the Tarifa African Film Festival (FCAT), This month, the added obstacles faced by female creators in her country and the need for female directors, especially African ones, to unlearn and stop complying with what is expected of them. “We are always talking about decolonising ourselves, but this is another form of colonisation. They tell you what people expect from an African filmmaker, what they want you to talk about if you want to be listened to,” she says.
Ask. The Rwandan women you portray were forced into marriage. No one held them back, but they did not try to escape from the home in which they were raped. Why?
Answer. They stayed because they were no longer virgins and that was considered a burden on society. No one stopped them from running away, but they knew that if they ran away from forced marriage and returned to society, they were considered something of a damaged object because they were not virgins. In the film I talk about the late 1990s, but some of these women are still living in those marriages today.
Q. There are families in which there is still no talk about how these couples came to be.
R. They were forced marriages in the nineties, but these people have remained married for many years. Even the children who were born from these marriages do not know how their parents met. Nobody talks about it.
P. Silence is very present in your film. As if at that moment it was the only possible defense of the raped woman against the rapist.
R. In my culture there is a lot of silence. Many things are left unsaid. When you ask your parents for example and they just keep quiet, you know that you should not ask any more questions. Even today, if you visit Rwanda, you will be surprised at how reserved people are.
For women it is sometimes a shock, because for a long time they have not had what they have today and it is as if they do not know how to use their own voice.
P. In the case of women, silence contains a lot of pain.
R. The silence is caused by the oppression they face and I think it is a global thing. Sometimes women keep quiet because they do not know what can happen to them if they speak out and that is why these forced marriages have not been talked about. The only witnesses to these couples were the women themselves.
Q. The Rwandan genocide looms in the background. How present is it today among people of your generation?
R. I am 31 years old and I believe that genocide will always be there. It’s been 30 years, which is nothing compared to what happened. The more years pass, the more you understand how hard and devastating it was. It’s hard for a day to go by without thinking about what happened in Rwanda, because if you pass by a place, you know there was a ditch there. There is a lot of sadness, but it is also interesting how to find a way to live everyday life and move forward. Of being able to appreciate life and fight.
P. You are self-taught. You learned to make films by watching movies.
R. I started making films in 2011 and there was no film school in my country at that time. That was when I made my first short films. I attended a seven-day film workshop and they gave me a lot of rules on how to make a film, but as I grew up, I realized that I had to find my way, my language. So I read different books and watched films from all over the world on the internet.
Q. Is it even more difficult for women?
R. Gender equality is a path that we still have to travel as a country. The Government makes efforts for equality, but for women it is sometimes a shockbecause for a long time they haven’t had what they have today and it’s like they don’t know how to use their own voice. As in other fields, in film, women are still not at the same level. Many times they don’t know if they want to direct or if they want to be more in the technical part because they grew up thinking that they could only be maybe someone’s wife. Or have a career to go to work and take care of the family again. It’s still a process and there aren’t many women in film. It’s also not easy to access technical knowledge because of family protection. Families think that film is not a good place for young girls, who will be out of the house at night…
Families think that the cinema is not a good place for young girls, who will be out of the house at night…
Q. African cinema is in fashion and there are many more films at international festivals. At the same time, some filmmakers on the continent warn of the danger of creating by responding to the stereotypical image that they know sells.
R. It is very sad and frustrating to be told what to do. We are always talking about decolonizing ourselves, but this is another form of colonization. They tell you what people expect from an African filmmaker, what they want you to talk about if you want them to listen to you. If you are a woman, for example, it seems that you are forced to address the issue of women’s oppression in Africa and that is very limiting. In sub-Saharan Africa you don’t have the luxury of making whatever art you want to make, there’s a kind of agenda that you have to fit into. I don’t know how we can change that, because we don’t have the infrastructure to do it alone, without the support of Western countries.
P. In some African countries, it is the young who are more aware of their past and have driven a movement to decolonize art, science and even the economy. They demand a more equal relationship with the former colonial powers than their parents’ generation did. Do you think this is positive?
R. This was bound to happen at some point. Young people are turning the equation on its head. They’re saying, ‘Wait, this was wrong, why did you do that to people?’… It’s a good thing that my generation is doing. A lot of artists are doing it, sometimes in subtle ways, just reinventing beauty or even being able to appreciate what they were taught but told was ugly because it was part of their culture.
Q. As a process to unlearn.
R. It’s a good word. Yes, unlearn what you have been taught for many years. I think it’s a long journey. This is a good start, but more is needed.
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