show a little faith there's magic in the night
Seeing one’s mother cry
Is never a good sight;
You begin to wonder
How bad things really are.
Thursday, October 10: Wales-African Film Festival, Pierhead Building, Cardiff. 7pm
Friday, October 11: Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Time 6pm
Friday, October 18: Tenby Museum and Art Gallery. 7pm
December 4: Cameroon High Commission, Holland Park, London TBC
December 5: Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea. 7.30pm
I grew up in Cameroon
Where on the wall
Of my mother’s living room
A gecko waited
Patiently
For the moth.
THIS IS NOT A POEM a hymn to tolerance and understanding, written and spoken by Eric Ngalle Charles, directed by Greg Lewis. A Pegasws Production.
Read all about this new short film here.
Today I drown in my sleep
Here in exile
While strangers build thrones on my father’s grave
A big shout-out to photographer Susy Fernandes who is following the production of our short film This Is Not A Poem.
I’ve worked on dozens of productions but have never had someone taking photos during the process.
Being behind the camera one feels quite anonymous. Susy’s photos are putting the camera operator Paul Roberts and myself under her own kind of spotlight.
We chose Susy because she can immediately connect with our subjects of internationalism, understanding and tolerance.
She was born in Mozambique in 1974 in the year of The Carnation Revolution (Revolucao dos Cravos), to Portuguese parents.
To escape the riots her parents moved the family to South Africa. She lived there until she was 12 and then the family moved back to Portugal.
In 2005, she and her own young family left Portugal and went to England to work. They later moved to Wales.
In Wales, she decided to continue her studies at Cardiff and Vale College and joined a BTEC course in Fashion and Clothing. She is now studying a Foundation Degree in Photography with the USW at CAVC.
She says: “I believe that we are never too old to study and to dream. I’m doing all this so that my four boys can see me as a role model who, despite suffering from a chronic condition (Fibromyalgia), still has hope for a better future.”
We have engaged Susy to document our filming days.
The only thing we haven’t managed to do yet is get a photo of Susy herself!
We’re underway. My friend, Eric Ngalle Charles, and I have long-cherished a dream to turn his words and poetry into a film-hymn to tolerance and understanding.
Eric is a Cameroon-born writer who came to Britain as a refugee almost twenty years ago and has since become one of Wales’ foremost poets.
His writing is fearless and often funny, drawing on a rich history of sub-Saharan African folk tales and on his own incredible experience of being driven from his homeland and people-trafficked.
Eric has performed at the Hay Festival and held a series of writing workshops at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea. The writer Owen Sheers, who is a keen supporter of Eric, has described his work as using “a unique theatrical language”.
For some time we’ve wanted to turn his work into a short film. Now, with the support of Arts Council of Wales and the Dylan Thomas Centre, we are.
We’ve worked together to edit and reshape many of Eric’s poems into a single narrative which describes why he left his homeland and how he came to settle in Wales.
And now filming has started. This blog will chart our progress.
The central theme of the work is identity and how we can all see ourselves as having several different identities at the same time: south Cameroonian, African, Welsh, for instance. Or English/Welsh-speaking Welsh, British, European.
The themes of the film are especially relevant because of the continuing national debate over immigration and Brexit.
The film will form part of a special event at which Eric will discuss poetry and his own thoughts on race and identity, and encourage discussion with the audience.
“We are all many people in one,” Eric says. “And the more we can understand ourselves, the easier it is to reach out to others and to understand them. Greg and I are committed to a message of bringing people closer together and making connections.”
Following its launch in September, the film will be shown at a number of venues around Wales and in Italy, where Eric has performed before.
That’s our camera operator, Paul Roberts, (centre above) carrying all the kit but still managing to keep ahead of us.
Please follow the ‘This Is Not A Poem’ Category and Tag to keep up with regular updates on the production.
Our photographs are from the fantastic Susy Fernandes and there will be more about – and from her – very soon.
Greg Lewis 