This is the last post celebrating our Zambia experience. It was a fun week remembering. Now it is time to look ahead at new projects. And for us that includes a project we discovered while in Zambia.

We spent weekends in workshops and seminars teaching young filmmakers about lighting, editing, shooting, scripts, tools, makeup, and sound. One Saturday we had the opportunity to teach digital filmmaking skills to a group of young filmmakers by having them watch a shoot.

Mulenga Kapawa, the Chair of the Zambian National Arts Council, arranged for the storytellers of 5 of the 73 tribes to come and tell their stories to an audience of Zambian children. At the end of the day we realized the treasure we had just witnessed in their verbal stories. Our primary object was not to document them, but to teach Zambian filmmakers the craft of filmmaking. We did not anticipate what we would be taught that day.

As a result, one of our current projects is to return to Zambia and document these storytellers in their villages as they teach their children the traditions that have been passed down for generations. This time we will sit down and write the English translation.

The storytellers. I find them fascinating. Don’t you just want to know what the story is about?