The Belgian/Congolese brother and sister filmmaking and photography team of Malkia and Nganji Mutiri, have joined forces to make their short film, "Miel" ("Honey"), which deals with the traumatic experiences of black migrants in Europe and elsewhere.
Directed by Malkia Mutiri, the script, written her brother Nganji, came about when he sent her an audio recording of "Couleur de Miel," a text he had recorded with original music composed by the Belgian musician Cloé du Trèfle. According to the filmmaker, "the images painted by the text where so vivid and inspiring that [she] called her brother right away, wanting to create a visual for the story."
She adds that, "after exchanging ideas during a couple of weeks, they both agreed on the way it should be done… showing more of the fragile mind set that the leading man is in."
Nganji, who also plays the lead in the film, says that, as a storyteller, "he focuses on everything that might cause the alienation of his main characters. In particular, alienation linked to racism, sexism, political oppression, colonialism, religious manipulations, and other historical traumas."
The script for the film was inspired by a stay in Morocco where he "realized that the racist violence some black migrants where victims of, was extremely worse than anything he had ever experienced himself in Belgium. [He] wanted to touch something rarely talked about in the media but viciously present in Europe and North Africa: the racial hatred some "Arabs" and "Blacks" demonstrate towards each other."
Both Malkia and Nganji have their own websites showcasing their work in film and photography which you can check out for yourself here (Malkia) and here (Nganji).
Watch the short film below: