 |
| Mighty Afrin: In The Time Of Floods. Angelos Rallis: 'There is no scripted dialogue. There is no cut and retake. But there is a circle of characters who improvise the real life story, knowing that there is a camera there, being comfortable with this process' Photo: Courtesy of Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival |
The film begins as the youngster is facing catastrophic flooding of her home on one of the Bramaputra river’s mud islands in Bangladesh before tracking her to Dhaka. There we see how many orphans scratch a living by collecting and burning rubbish on the streets. It’s a stark situation, which is why the film moves from fly-in-the-wall to more structured storytelling as the director sought to ethically capture Afrin’s story.
When we caught up with the Greek director just after the film’s premiere at Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, Rallis, who has a background in photography, explained his approach, noting that he shoots his own footage.
“This gives me the opportunity to connect very much with the characters and become part of the story in a way. For me, there's always no objectivity, if you want to make a documentary. Someone has to take all the necessary decisions about filming, the angles, the story, the close up or the edit. It's always, one way or another, the choices you make as a photographer, and as a director, which is like, being the same person, it gives the advantage of trying to tell the story in a more precise way and use his time to connect better with the characters and immerse in the story.”
He adds: “It does have the hybridity. It was a stylistic and aesthetic choice. I asked the people in the film to discuss, in their own capacity, their own sense of understanding of what's happening.
“There is no scripted dialogue. There is no cut and retake. But there is a circle of characters who improvise the real life story, knowing that there is a camera there, being comfortable with this process.”
Rallis notes that he didn’t tell anyone what to say or to do anything they didn’t want to do, but often left the camera running for long periods, filming 600 hours across the whole shoot.
 |
| Angelos Rallis at the premiere in Thessaloniki. The director says shooting his own footage 'gives me the opportunity to connect very much with the characters and become part of the story in a way' Photo: Courtesy of Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival/Ververidis Vassilis |
On the subject of ethics, the director, who has a sociology background, says: “Ethical choices are very important. I see my work as a two-way process. I need to trust Afrin and she needs to trust me. I want to film this journey of the people through her eyes and, of course, throughout that time, I tried to bring safety to both of us.”
An example of this happens during the filming of Afrin’s train journey to Dhaka. She is seen first on top of a train and then in one of the boxcars with the door open. Although many people do ride the trains, there’s no doubt it’s risky - and Rallis went to considerable lengths to control the situation.
After he’d obtained permission to shoot on the train, he also rode the part of the route they were going to shoot on to make sure there were no dangers like overhanging branches.
He adds: “Then, because the speed was some 60kph (about 40 miles an hour), I requested to go slower during the ride just for three stops and then we would jump out.”
Although they also shoot in the boxcar it’s worth noting that they did have two tickets for the journey. “I interfere in order to maintain the safety,” he says.
The same was true of the shoot when they reached Dhaka, where we see Afrin make friends with some youngsters living there. Although both he and Afrin did sleep outside some of the time initially, Rallis also notes they all went for showers in hotel rooms from time to time “because there is a lot of dirt and a lot of sickness” on the streets. Although there were breaks in the shooting, caused by Covid and finances, Rallis’ assistant kept in daily contact with Afrin to make sure she was okay.
The film becomes “more elliptical” at this point - incorporating an imagined trip back to the island - because Rallis wanted to convey Afrin’s feelings based on conversations they had off-camera. Although she liked the community of children she was with, she didn’t like the situation they were in.
“There was this kind of dilemma in her head, about her old life and new life,” Rallis says. “That's why we felt at this moment that it would work well, to have this flashback.”
She and two of the other children are looked after now by an NGO at a well-facilitated shelter. “They take the kids with buses to local schools so they don't become isolated. Integrating these kids that were cut off and marginalised back into the school system. At the same time, they do outreach to other children on the street.”
Rallis also keeps in touch with Afrin and says she recently acquired a passport, travelling to Qatar for the World Cup as part of a FIFA initiative for orphans.
Looking to his own future, the director says: “I would like to experiment with doing a fictional story, but with real life characters. So for example, using characters like Afrin on the island and the other people but making fiction from her lives and for it to be scripted because that would be easier.”
One thing is not in doubt after watching this film, Afrin is, indeed mighty. As Rallis notes, “women are heroes in this context”.
Watch the trailer below
