When the adventure bug bit French husband and wife team Alexandre and Sonia Poussin in 2001, they spent the next three years shooting across Africa. Climbing mountains and rivers, soaking up the heat and Africa’s vibrant array of languages, dialects and landscapes. Martin Chemhere tells the story of their long expedition.
The self taught and budding documentary filmmaking couple were determined to repackage a triple DVD titled Africa Trek, the story of upbeat Africa set against negative African news sometimes portrayed by the international media.
The DVD features a series (12 episodes x 26 minutes), a movie (98 minutes) and some extras. It is also available in a coffee table book format — currently only available in French. The episodes were edited by Pascal Cardeilhac and Florence Tran who followed the travellers’ directions and script, but also kept their creative freedom. Richard Wolfe of the Travel Channel translated from French to English.
“I thought the treatment Africa receives in the news was unfair, and that there was much more than wars, famine, epidemics, corruption and poverty to report on about Africa,’ explains Poussin. He is adamant that Africa is: “wonderful, hospitable, welcoming place with generous, resilient, courageous, happy, funny and joyful people. We took on these lessons every day. More importantly, we had the courage to carry on the work and to have our story told on television, in media interviews and in our book.’
Poussin adds that in telling this story they encountered “so many challenges that it’s a miracle to show their accomplishments today’.
Brand ambassadors
Shooting the earlier stages of Africa Trek was without any sponsors, but as the couple walked with Hi-Tec shoes they invented the concept of “post-sponsoring’. They told the shoe manufacturers what they had done with their product and started a relationship. “We are now brand ambassadors for outdoor products,’ he says.
The expedition and shoot began on
1 January 2001 in the Cape of Good Hope in a long walk up to the Sea of Galilee that lasted three years and three months without interruption in between.
Shooting was done through Africa using a Sony PD 100 plus, a XLR plug and a Sennheiser microphone. This took over 1 200 days, 342 tapes of 42 minutes each, culminating in 240 hours of material.
Poussin believes that the DVD is a top quality product: “It’s quite chronological with a documentary feel and the feature movie was edited differently. We didn’t want the whole thing to be long and boring! The final product preserves the relaxed spirit and the courageous atmosphere of the walk.’
Distribution
French company MK2 is handling distribution of the triple DVD including the series and the long feature movie for that territory while in the US Inkwaterpress has published a triple DVD of the series (four episodes per DVD).
The French market has already absorbed more than 20 000 units of the triple format DVD while the book has sold over 300 000 copies. In the US the series has aired 20 000 times on PBS throughout the country. Says Poussin: “It means that we have been on air for 361 days, it’s absolutely dreamlike!’
Breaking into the US market initially proved intricate as Poussin states that both National Geographic and Discovery rejected his proposal. He says this is because they were the first to record a documentary series by themselves without back-up team and crew, for such a long period of time. “The market was not ready for authentic adventure with very little budget.’
Poussin reveals that there is a lot of footage left, which they haven’t had time to review yet. “It’s painful, it’s like sticking a knife in the wound each time,’ he says. “We had to make smart editing choices, excruciating sometimes, because we had too many stories. Why select this one instead of this other one?’
Yet to be edited footage includes interviews with HW van der Merwe, the peacemaker who brought the apartheid government and ANC together to talk and who managed the education of some of Mandela’s children in the US; an exclusive interview with Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister and opposition MDC leader when he was in custody in 2001; an interview with famous paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey in Kenya; some awesome footage with Maasai and Turkana people; daily life of a fisherman’s village in Malawi; a cholera outbreak in Mozambique; and so much more.
Poussin’s previous film, La Marche dans le Ciel, (1996; 52 minutes) is about an expedition in the Himalayan Range and traces their 5 000km journey from Bhutan to Tajikistan. Although it was never released it was broadcast on French public television.
