FeFF Winner Director Eliaichi Kimaro talks about the her Documentary film "A Lot Like You"

So my name is Ellie Kimaro and I made a documentary film. It's a very personal documentary about my journey going back to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to try to learn more about this culture that I inherited from my father. And so the film sort of captures what that journey was like for me and sort of how I came to terms with what I found when I was little. How long have you been doing this? Eight years. Eight years? Yeah. That's a long time. That's a really long time. So how did you manage to do that? That was hard. Yeah. I mean, it was... I'm a first-time filmmaker. I've never made a film before this. It's sort of like something that I just sort of... It's a medium that found me. It just seemed like the perfect medium for going if I was going to try to go understand a culture. The film felt like the perfect way to do it, you know? But I had no experience and I had no connections. And so it was kind of like a high-risk investment for a lot of funders, you know? And especially at a time when funding was sort of falling on harder time. People were getting a little bit more sort of conservative with what they were willing to fund. It was a tough time to make a film. So I did a lot of independent fundraising, a lot of house parties. Friends of mine threw a fundraising auction for us, which is amazing. But, you know, it was just a lot of hustling. And then after a while, I just had to sort of put that aside. I found people who were committed to the project. Who took it on as a labor of love. Really seasoned professionals who just decided that this would be the project that they would take on as their pet project. And so my editor's been on it for six years. My composer's been on it for three years. They're now both producers on the film. Because, you know, it's just... It's been tough to raise money to make it a financially viable piece. But hopefully now that it's done and people can see it and we get to show it in festivals like this. And winning an award too. And then fortunate enough to win awards. Then hopefully that can turn it around and I'll be able to compensate them and express my gratitude on the back end. So we'll see. Did you have friends who got involved? With FEFF? I can't remember if they found me or if I found them. But I'm really passionate about finding festivals that bring traditionally marginalized voices into the center. And include that in the evolving narrative of the human experience. And so whether it's looking at the mixed-race experience or the African-American experience or the Asian experience or the female perspective. All of these have been festivals that have been embracing this film and just sort of seeing parts of their story reflected in this film. And so for the first time ever I'm really enjoying the fact that I get to check many boxes. And so all of those are sort of coming, yeah. I'm being able to sort of find a particular audience for the film through those connections and through those communities. So this one is a documentary. Could you do another? No, I can't. One, I can't imagine doing another film. I feel like this is the story I was meant to tell. So what I'm doing is I'm actually sort of like the feature-length film is now becoming an hour-length film. And that hour-length film is going to become like shorter pieces that can be used in classrooms. You know what I mean? Like if people want to use it as an educational tool. So I'm continuing to reversion and repurpose this film for several generations. You know what I mean? So I think that's what I'm sort of focused on. If I were to make another film it would probably be a documentary. I mean I think, I'm a journal writer. I write in my journal. You know what I mean? And so that's what I know. That's the kind of story I know how to tell. It's just rooted in personal experience. And if not mine, then probably somebody else's. So yeah, I think that's what I would know how to tell. That's my strength in terms of storytelling. You know what? The whole film almost occurs in Tanzania on Mount Kilimanjaro. Yeah, and so I went to school in Canada. I went to Western. But that's kind of the extent of my Canadian ties. I'm from Seattle. So it was lovely to be able to hop on a plane and just end up in Toronto and just be here. It's such a fantastic city, you know? So when is your film released? Well, we had our world premiere May 2011 at Seattle International Film Festival. And we've been doing the festival circuit the last year. And it will most likely come out on PBS this coming fall. And yeah, details to be determined. But yeah, absolutely. It's exciting. We'll be tuning in for that. Thank you.