Bambara Blues is a dynamic film about Ami Diarra, a griot (traditional narrator) in Mali who uses the oral tradition to educate the community on the dangers of HIV/AIDS. Together with the stream of people who have immigrated to the goldmines near the city of Kayes, the HIV virus has also rooted itself there and is taking its toll. Because of her respected position as a griot, Ami Diarra has access to the local population, but the authorities do not seem to take her seriously as they will only collaborate with NGOs.

Director Jacqueline van Vugt.
Produced by Viewpoint Productions
Editor Lucienne Groot

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About love; Mr. and Mrs. Chan  (documentary 25 min.)

When the single, 35-year-old Ting asks her elderly father about his memories, the answer she gets is “Blown by the wind.” He’d rather not look back at the past: let bygones be bygones. Still, the viewer gets to know a lot about those bygones, through intertitles, family pictures and words that remain unspoken. Shortly after World War II, Ting’s parents were married off to each other in Hong Kong. Her father took the boat to Holland and had his wife and children join him a few years later. In the 1970s, he ran the restaurant Wing Heung in IJmuiden, which eventually went under. Now, her father eats rice from a newspaper and her mother is on a diet for diabetics. They sit on a red leather sofa together, but they’ve already requested separate gravestones for when they die. Ting’s mother hates the fact that her father gambles his money away playing cards, but she won’t leave him for it. Implicitly, About Love; Mr. & Mrs. Chan is about a daughter’s love for her parents, who have led a completely different life from the one she leads now.

Credits

• Director & Camera Ting Chan
• Producer & Editing Lucienne Groot
• Screenplay Lucienne Groot and Ting Chan
• Sound Design Bram van der Poel

Below: About Love premiere during IDFA in Tuschinsky