The skanner., February 09, 2011, Page 6, Image 6

arts & entertainment
Portland Director Cambria Matlow on Mali’s Attempt to Go Solar
By Brian Stimson
of The Skanner News
O
n Thursday, Dec. 17 the African
Film Festival will host Portland-
based director Cambria Matlow
for a screening and Q &A of her docu-
mentary “Burning in the Sun” at 7:30 p.m.
at the Moriarty Arts and Humanities
Building at PCC Cascade. Like all films
for PCC’s African Film Festival, the
screening is free.
“Burning in the Sun” is a documentary
that tells the story of 26-year-old Daniel
Dembele, who decides to return to his
homeland of Mali in order to start a busi-
ness building and selling solar panels. In a
country where 99 percent of rural commu-
nities live without electricity, Daniel’s
idea could revolutionize the impover-
ished, sun-drenched country. With the
help of Dr. Richard Komp, he struggles to
get his ideas off the ground in order to pro-
vide affordable electricity to people who still rely on wood-
burning stoves to survive.
Matlow spoke with The Skanner News about her film, the
struggles of filmmaker and businessman and the perils of
filming in Mali.
the Skanner news: What motivated you to pursue this
story? If you really step back and look at this story, it looks
like any story that happens all the time – someone creates a
small business, innovates something, it happens all the
time. Why this?
Cambria Matlow: I sort of got lucky, in that I was invited
to Mali to be the filmmaker and film the events that were to
transpire. I was in my
first semester of film
school when it hap-
pens. A friend of mine
knew two of the main
characters. She was a
friend
of
Daniel
Dembele who is the
young man in the film
and also knew Dr.
Richard Komp who they brought to Mali and who trained
Daniel in solar panel construction and all things solar. This
person also knew me. She brought Daniel and Richard
together. Daniel had expressed an interest in going back to
From “Burning in the Sun”
Mali in doing something sort of not only business oriented,
but service oriented, in the line of his mother’s work.
Richard Komp has traveled all over the word helping peo-
ple start solar businesses. Everyone had a desire to meet.
Knowing I was a filmmaker, my friend said, “Hey this guy
is building solar panels in his driveway in Mali, do you
want to come film?” She’d been telling me of what she
thought might happen. What had happened in projects like
this before that Richard had taken on. Knowing the possi-
bilities, solar energy is pretty revolutionary in the United
States, let along West Africa, where you don’t hear a lot
about technological innovations. I just was like, this sounds
really, really fascinating and interesting and exciting, some-
thing that will never happen ever again. I should really
jump on it, basically. It inspired me enough to decide to do
the project.
Her film ‘Burning in the
Sun’ Premiers at African
Film Festival Feb. 10
tSn: What were some of the challenges that
Daniel faced in trying to get his solar business off
the ground?
CM: Definitely financial challenges, which he
continues to face. At this point, there’s a huge
demand of panels that people build themselves. At
the beginning of the project, having enough initial capital to
get all the parts he needed and pay for the labor and costs.
He had a lot support that was critical to (get the project
going) Dr. Komp continues to travel back to Mali to check
in and make sure everything is functioning properly and
relaying new things to do things and seeing what new things
Daniel is doing. Things can go wrong very easily and also
especially in the beginning there was a lot of trial and error,
getting things to work exactly as they should. It was a mat-
ter of experience and practice. Daniel would say — we
don’t really talk about this a lot in the film — Daniel was
worried about people abusing the notion of something that
could be really good for people, and trying to make money
for themselves without doing anything for anyone else —
sort of stealing the idea of selling solar panels and taking
advantage of poor people.
TSN: Has this fear come to fruition?
CM: It hasn’t happened to him, but he feels it is some-
thing that happens frequently in the nonprofit world in
Mali. I don’t see any direct notion of it, but I was only there
for so long. His mom worked in the nonprofit world for 30-
some years and shared his sentiments — that you really had
to protect ideas from people abusing them.
TSN: Does the film paint a positive picture of Mali being
able to build a solar infrastructure?
CM: The film itself is very inspiring and hopeful. There’s
not a lot of editorial on the filmmakers’ part. There’s no out-
side narrator. What you get from it, is literally the story that
is told, the events that transpire and the things that they
have to say. While you’ll see challenges that Daniel faces,
things that people generally face, you’ll also see the suc-
cesses and achievements and things that change in a posi-
Daniel was worried about
people abusing the notion of
something that could be really
good for people
tive direction. It’s really an inspiriting, positive film.
tSn: Did the film’s positive subject matter affect how
you marketed the film? Many of the films coming out of
Africa deal with the continent’s long-running wars or other
problems, so did this film have a hard time finding an audi-
ence?
CM: The responses I’ve gotten from African and African
Americans film communities, I’ll say, and generally, the
communities, is really strong and very immediately and
easily identifying with the characters and situations, and
they enjoy the film. I think it’s a really important story and
very large, globally relevant subject matter, but it’s a very
small story, in that we focus on a very contained story and
specific characters. The reason we did that is that first and
foremost we wanted to tell a good story. Not something
depressing, in particular because you do see so many films
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Page 6 The Portland and Seattle Skanner february 9, 2011