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he voice of the young man resounds from the megaphone he is holding out of the window of a white Toyota 4WD: Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters! ose without legs get a walking stick! ose without an eye, borrow it from a sheep! Come and watch a lm about the ght against sexual violence! e car enters a little Congolese village and it does not take long for a group of curious locals to gather around it. ree young men start unloading large metalcornered cases and boxes from the trunk. ey start setting up what within a few hours will be a large-scale, open-air cinema. In a collaborative e ort with the locals they stretch the screen onto a huge frame, set up the rear projector and connect the loudspeakers. e noise from the generator resounds. Just as the sun makes its nal appearance the light from the back of the canvas illuminates thousands of faces in the audience. ey all came to watch Fighting the Silence by Dutch lmmakers Ilse and Femke van Velzen.

BRINGING DOCUMENT
communities. Through screeenings of documentaries shot in and about The Democratic Republic of Congo they aim to raise awareness
THE MOBILE CINEMA FOUNDATION wants to foster change in troubled

A mini-documentary on the website of the Mobile Cinema Foundation captures the essence. It exempli es what is happening in villages in North Kivu, an area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that is still not at peace a er years of war and armed con ict. e Kivu region, named a er its geographic proximity to Lake Kivu, which partly forms the natural border to Rwanda, gained ill fame as one of the areas with the highest prevalence of sexual violence in recent years. e sisters Ilse and Femke van Velzen shot Fighting the Silence here. e documentary primarily deals with victims of rape and premiered in 2007. Two years later, the lmmakers completed Weapon of War, featuring military perpetrators who confess how sexual violence is employed strategically in war. Both lms are now featured in projects of the Mobile Cinema Foundation in the DR Congo, bringing them (back) to probably the most important audience: back to victims, perpetrators and the communities concerned. e idea to employ mobile cinema was born while lming Fighting the Silence. Local womens groups and NGOs had asked the lmmakers for permission to use the lm in their work with rape victims who are struggling with social, physical and psychological problems. According to Femke van Velzen, handing out DVDs in some regions of Eastern Congo where there is hardly any electricity, let alone DVD players, would have been pointless, so they decided to go mobile. Fortunately, they could secure funding for the project from Amnesty International until 2013. But the lmmakers faced a serious problem: Fighting the Silence hadnt been made for a Congolese audience. e victims and husbands gave permission for international

distribution. But it is di erent when the lm is shown in your backyard, says Femke van Velzen. We showed the lm to everyone who is part of it rst. And before we even explained

the idea of the mobile cinema, a lot of them actually said, it would be good to show it here. Maybe it is more di cult for me, but it might help others.

To stop sexual violence, you should work with the group that is causing the problems. Soldiers are also victims of the war none of these men were born as rapists.
Femke van Velzen

With the approval of the protagonists secured, and in cooperation with local NGOs working on the issue, the van Velzens edited four versions of Fighting the Silence for Congolese viewers. One is a 60-minute lm for a general public that is shown on soccer elds or in market places and followed by an open oor debate. e other three are educational workshop lms targeted, for instance, at couples. Rape and sexual violence against women o en isolates the victims, because their husbands feel pressure from the community to leave them, so the workshop lm for this target audience shows examples of men taking back their wives and supporting them, serving as role models. Coordination of the mobile cinema projects in the eld is managed by the international NGO Search for Common Ground (SFCG). Its local groups had previous experience in organizing travelling theatre plays in the DR Congo, which makes them experts in getting permission and

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NTARY BACK TO KIVU

and facilitate discussion. The foundation gives victims of civilian rape a face with two documentaries by IF Productions: Fighting the Silence and Weapon of War. Feature by Bettina Rehmann

For the work with members of the national armed forces, footage from both lms as well as additional material shot exclusively for the project was used. Six short lms were made that are now being used for workshops with small divisions of 20 to 30 soldiers. Every lm features a di erent aspect of rape as a weapon of war and opens a discussion that encourages soldiers to share their own experiences a er the screening. ere is a lot to win with this target group, says Femke van Velzen. Although it is important to focus on victims, she believes more work should be done addressing the perpetrators. To stop sexual violence, you need a place safer than the DR Congo as ghts are still going on. But if you really want to go further you should work with the group that is causing the problems and not only work with the victims. Soldiers are also victims of the war none of these men were born as rapists.

accessing remote areas. Shabunda for example an isolated region in the South Kivu rain forest, only accessible by plane recently hosted a screening. In connection with the screenings, SFCG establishes contacts within local womens groups or NGOs and informs the audience about where they can nd such organizations. Many among the audience relate to the documentary in a personal way. e odds are high that victims or perpetrators are among them, says Femke van Velzen. So many women have been raped in Congo there is always someone that knows someone with the experience. Measuring the impact of the mobile cinema project is di cult, if not impossible. Femke van Velzen nevertheless believes that watching the lms can lead to a better understanding and thereby help women and couples who have become victims. A er they have seen the lm, they know because it is real people, women from Congo that show their faces, and the faces are not blurred that they are not alone, that there are others struggling with the same problems. Maybe it will not change their lives; they are still

stigmatized. But it can give them a little bit of hope.

After Fighting the Silence came Weapon of War, a project that had not been anticipated, says Femke. We never planned to make more lms than in Congo but we had many questions le . Not much research had been done about the perpetrators so we decided to make a lm and ask them ourselves. With the Mobile Cinema

What makes the mobile cinema in the DR Congo special is that the films are taken back to where they have been shot.
Foundation, they created an educational project with and for the Congolese National Armed Forces (FARDC) that started in late August. Since the o cial end of the Congo War (2003), the FARDC is still in a process of reformation as soldiers stand accused of serious human rights violations. A recent UN investigation into mass rapes, which happened in early 2011 in North Kivu, identi ed FARDC members as perpetrators.

The Mobile Cinema Foundation did not invent the idea of mobile screenings or the use of lm as an educational tool. e Movies that Matter Foundation in the Netherlands, for instance, supports mobile lm festivals and projects that employ screenings of human rights lms in rural communities all over the world. Others, such as Solar Cinema in India, have understood the power of lm to engage for equality of men and women in Indian communities. What makes the mobile cinema in the DR Congo special is that the lms are taken back to where they have been shot. People in the audience can relate to the protagonists, as these are their fellow citizens, neighbours, friends, and family. Bringing the lms back to them can enable an opportunity to discuss and nd solutions to the problem of sexual violence. A problem that is o en tabooed divides communities and has profound e ects on the lives of many Congolese. Femke van Velzen understands that pushing the mobile cinema project forward a ects her role as a documentary lmmaker. Are we lmmakers or are we activists? We are lmmakers that do more with their lms says Femke. First we make a lm and that is our main goal. But I think it is beautiful if you can do more. And she is convinced that is the future. ere is a whole new generation of lmmakers that do more with their lms. With their current documentary Justice for Sale about the legal system in Congo, the lmmaking sisters go one step further. e lm was accepted at the rst European GoodPitch in London, where they applied for funding for lobbying tools for policymakers, educational tools for universities and outreach campaigning in the DR Congo.
Rehmann is a freelance journalist, working in Berlin and Stockholm. bettina.rehmann@gmail.com Links: http://www.mobilecinemafoundation.com, http://www.ifproductions.nl/

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