Finding motivations and inspirations to create that boost of creativity can be daunting – especially when chaos surrounds the premises of your life. The stress of life, navigating through relationships, can take a toll on the mental health of creatives. To make things easier, we’ve compiled a list of excellent documentaries that will inform and inspire you when looking for the next big idea.
ELEPHANT’S DREAM
Elephant’s Dream is a multifaceted look at daily life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that provides a window into the lives of some of the nation’s service personnel. It gives us numerous perspectives of daily life in Kinshasa, the nation’s capital, from those who work at the state-run post office, rail station, and fire headquarters. The film is a departure from the unrest and physical violence that are frequently the subjects of documentaries concerning the DRC, and it is directed by British-Belgian filmmaker Kristoff Bilsen.
BECOMING BLACK
Ines Johnson-Spain, the director of this incisive documentary, excavates the ghosts associated with the events surrounding her birth by going back to Germany in the 1960s. Although though everyone around her made a concentrated effort to avoid talking about the topic, Johnson-Spain always felt strange and out of place growing up as a mixed-race child in an otherwise lily-white home. Johnson-Spain describes the astonishing denial tactics her German family used to conceal the truth of her origin through childhood memories and matter-of-fact recollections after tracking her biological father to his family’s house in Togo.
THE PEARL OF AFRICA
Jonny von Wallström’s film follows transgender Ugandan Cleopatra Kambugu as she investigates how people in her own nation view gender identity and navigates the numerous difficulties that come with doing so. On the film’s website, it’s described as “an intimate story of resilience, courage, acceptance and self-determination told in an intimate, poetic way with a hope to make people more aware of the commonalities behind our humanity rather than the peculiarities of our multiple identities.”
IN SEARCH
The practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) was illegal in Kenya in 2011, but Beryl Magoko, the film’s forceful lead and director, knows that it will take more than a government decree to help her recover from the psychological and physical scars. Magoko, who is currently residing in Germany, has a severe wound and is thinking of having reconstructive surgery to take back her body. But before she agrees to the treatment, Magoko has honest and in-depth discussions with other FGM survivors, her medical professionals, and a psychiatrist who helps her navigate the psychological repercussions.
With In Search, Magoko delivers that rare thing on screen: a place where women can talk to each other and be heard. She does this by being perceptive and constantly sympathetic in her questioning.
THE LETTER
Although the events of The Letter take place in a Kenyan community, communities all over the continent can easily relate to them. After his grandmother is accused of witchcraft, a young man named Karisa makes the journey from Mombasa to his ancestral village. His interactions with family members soon make clear that the accusations are a part of a scheme that avaricious relatives frequently concoct to drive elderly people off their land. When studying the oral history of coastal Kenya, directors Maia Lekow and Christopher King, a husband and wife team, stumbled onto this beautiful work of human drama.
Investigations conducted for The Letter show how a dangerous concoction of superstitious beliefs and religious zeal is used to threaten to uproot particular groups of people from their homes. Through a personal story of courage and family, The Letter also comments on Pentecostal evangelism, capitalism as well as the aftershocks of post-colonial trauma.
