INTERVIEW

Notes by Hubert Sauper on DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE

 
'I witnessed in 1997 for the first time the strange encounter of two gigantic airplanes, both bursting with food. The first cargo jet brought 45 tons of yellow peas from America to feed the refugees in the nearby UN camps. The second plane took off for the European Union, heaving with 50 tons of fresh fish. Soon it became clear that the rescue planes with yellow peas also carried ammunitions into the same destinations on fire. Knowing the chronology and faces of such a cynical reality from within became the trigger for Darwin's Nightmare, my longest ever cinematographic commitment.'Notes by Hubert Sauper on his documentary Darwin's Nightmare.

 

After its international premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and many international awards including Best European Documentary, Sauper's film was nominated as Best Documentary for the 78th Academy Awards . Origins of the Nightmare The idea of this film was born during my research on another documentary, Kisangani Diary that follows the Rwandese Refugees in the midst of the Congolese rebellion. I witnessed in 1997 for the first time the strange encounter of two gigantic airplanes, both bursting with food. The first cargo jet brought 45 tons of yellow peas from America to feed the refugees in the nearby UN camps. The second plane took off for the European Union, heaving with 50 tons of fresh fish. Those days I met the Russian pilots and we became "kamarads". But soon it became clear that the rescue planes with yellow peas also carried ammunitions into the same destinations on fire, therefore the same refugees in the same nearby UN camps could be shot at during the nights. In the mornings, what my trembling camera saw in this stinking jungle were bodies and destroyed camps. Knowing the chronology and faces of such a cynical reality from within became the trigger for Darwin's Nightmare, my longest ever cinematographic commitment. The Middle of the World - The Great Lakes Region is the green, fertile and mineral rich centre of Africa, and is said to be the birthplace of mankind. The area is commonly known for it's unique wild life, snowy volcanoes and famous National Parks. At the same time, it is truly the "Heart of Darkness" of our world. The civil wars that rage in this area take place in a kind of moral oblivion. They are by far the deadliest conflicts since World War II. In the Congo alone, the casualties of war equal the number of deaths of September 11th in NY, but every day of the year. If not totally ignored, the uncountable wars are often qualified as "tribal conflicts", like those of Rwanda and Burundi. The hidden causes of such troubles are, in most cases, imperialistic interests in natural resources. In the Heart of Darkness To shoot Darwin's Nightmare we needed a lot of time but minimalist unit: my faithful travel companion Sandor, my small camera and I. We had to be very close to our "characters" and follow their lives over long periods. I feel like they are an important part of my existence now. When you look out for contrasts and contradictions, reality can become "bigger than life". So in a way it was easy to find striking images because I was filming a striking reality. But it was also easy to get into trouble. On location in Tanzania we could never really show up as a regular film team. In order to fly with cargo planes we had to disguise ourselves as pilots and loadmasters and carry fake identities. In villages we were mistaken as salvation missionaries, the fish factory managers feared we could be hygiene inspectors from the EU. We had to be Australian businessmen in the fancy hotel bars, or just harmless backpackers in the African bush, "taking pictures". Many many days were lost in front of sweating, confused and questioning police officers, on checkpoints and in local prisons. A good part of the filming budget was wasted just for paying ourselves free. The national Newspaper headlines and even the BBC in London declared, "French and American Journalists kidnapped by Bandits on Lake Victoria". Since the writer Nick Flynn from NY was travelling with us, the US embassy in Dar es Salaam started franticly ringing the alarm for their lost citizens. There was no kidnapping, however, but once again we had been held back on a remote fishing island - this time accused of shooting "blue movies" with naked girls. For us it had become a kind of dull routine to be hindered from working and to just sit in the merciless equatorial sun surrounded by a million Nile perch skeletons, trying not to go mad. Survival of the Fittest The old question, which social and political structure is the best for the world seems to have been answered. Capitalism has won. The ultimate form for future societies seem to be "consumer democracies", which are seen as "civilized" and "good". In a Darwinian sense the "good system" won. It won by either convincing its enemies or eliminating them. In Darwin's Nightmare I tried to transform the bizarre success story of a fish and the ephemeral boom around this "fittest" animal into an ironic, frightening allegory for what is called the New World Order. I could make the same kind of observation in Sierra Leone, only the perch would be a diamond, in Honduras, a banana, and in Libya, Nigeria or Angola - the fish would be crude oil. Most of us I guess, know about the destructive mechanisms of our time, but we cannot fully picture them. We are unable to "get it", unable to actually believe what we know. It is for example so incredible, that wherever prime material is discovered, systematically the locals die in misery, their sons become soldiers and their daughters are turned into servants and whores. Hearing and seeing the same stories over and over makes me feel sick. After hundreds of years of slavery and European colonisation of Africa, the effects of the globalisation of markets are the most recent and deadliest humiliation for the people of this continent. The arrogant attitude of the rich countries towards the third world (that's three quarters of humanity) is creating immeasurable future dangers for all peoples. It seems that the individual participants within a deadly system have no ugly faces, and for the most part, no bad intentions. These people include you and me. Some of us are "only doing their job" (like flying a jumbo from A to B carrying napalm), some don't want to know, others simply fight for survival. I tried to film the personalities in this documentary as intimately as possible. Sergey, Dimond, Raphael, Eliza - real people who wonderfully represent the complexity of this system, and for me, they represent the real enigma. Hubert Sauper