NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 16 – A film that follows Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior, vice-president of South Sudan, through the eyes of her daughter Akuol, is expected to be unveiled on Friday.
Akuol de Mabior, who is a filmmaker, model, and women’s rights activist told Capital FM News that the film titled No Simple Way Home offers glimpses into Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior’s political career, but also into her role as a mother, both her children and to a nation.
“There can be a lot of hostility and suspicion between generations within the African context, especially in politics. There is a lot of value when we’re able to get in a room together and the younger generation can say I can learn from you and the older generation can say you have new fresh ideas there are things in your perspective that I can gain from you young person,” she explained.
She says the film is about family, first of all, and about the country and the struggle to reconcile the political and the personal coming from a political family.
“There’s a moment in the film where I ask my mum something you don’t ask your mum or so I hope that we can watch this film together all of us and then go back and ask each other questions that we don’t normally ask,” Akuol said.
The film is told through a series of interviews, or rather, a tradition of treasured morning conversations that De Mabior has with her mother, and decided to film.
For more than 20 years, De Mabior’s father, John Garang de Mabior, led the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Africa’s longest-running civil war, until 2005, when a peace agreement was signed and he was appointed as the First Vice-President of Sudan.
Akuol describes ‘No Simple Way Home’ as a personal platform where is able to show how her family history is intertwined with that of her country, and how these shaped her life and that of her compatriots as well.
“With the volatility at that time, anything could have happened really and when that happened it became less biographical less about the past and Remembrance are not forgetting and more about where are we now and where are we going and who are we,” she stated.
Akoul will grace the opening night of the film’s screening which will take place at Unseen Nairobi at 8.30 pm, which will be followed by a plenary session moderated by Capital FM’s Chao Tolle.
The screenings are slated to end on December 22, 2022.
The film has a 7 pm on Weekends and 8.30 pm screening on weekdays.
