Dispatches from the Niger Delta is a collection of thoughts, records and annotations made during trips to the Niger Delta, along with Pantheras documentary development and field research. The following posts are like open diary pages that both Salomé Lamas and other members of the team are sharing in order to make Pantheras Cosmology a project as open as possible.
November 2021 - March 2022: before departure
Niger Delta. Another no-man's-land, where the blackness or the psychopathology of Fanon's colonization seems now like an empty sound, and scholar debates, that writhe around neo-colonialism, echo distant and misfit. I am Portuguese, a semi-peripheral country with a colonial past in a bloody old, privileged Europe. We have stretched the limits. How do we cope with the spectrums and trauma of history repeating itself and with our tragic condition? ...
March - April 2022: first scouting trip
Where is the desire in this film? At which price? It would be easier to be a reporter here. The challenge of a film is entirely different. Establishing a film crew in the Niger Delta is not only more expensive and risky because of the time spent on the ground, it is also more demanding in terms of access and engagement needs with the communities. Questioning the film, the scope of an action, the impact on reality, disproportion. Frustration. ...
