Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.06.2018, Síða 50

Come For The Films,
Stay For The Party
“Kanema’s Song” wins both awards at Icelandic
documentary film festival Skjaldborg
Words: Phil Uwe Widiger Photo: Art Bicnick
Film
'Kanema’s Song' is coming to Bíó
Paradís on September 7th. Watch
the trailer at skjaldborg.com
“In the year 2000, when my daugh-
ter Kanema was about three years
old, there weren't that many mixed
families in Iceland, nor mixed chil-
dren,” says Anna Þóra Steinþórs-
dóttir. “I used to go with her to do
groceries and people would always
be stopping me to admire her or
stare at her. A lot of people didn't
know about mixed marriages or
different cultures even. I even had
to convince one person that she
was actually my daughter—he just
couldn't believe it.”
Anna Þóra is the director of
“Kanema’s song”, who won both
the jury’s and the audience’s award
at this year’s documentary film
festival “Skjaldborg”. 18 years lat-
er, “Kanema’s Song” is Anna Þóra’s
fourth documentary as a director,
and the third to feature her daugh-
ter, Erna Kanema Mashinkila, as
the main actress. Kanema’s father
is from Zambia which was the set-
ting for the first two documen-
taries, mainly aimed at children
and used as education material in
primary schools. “We wanted to
educate people about how it is to
grow up on the borderline of two
cultures,” says Anna Þóra.
That’s the spirit
While Kanema was still a child in
the first two films, in “Kamena’s
Song” she is an adult who is cu-
rious about her origins as a mu-
sician. Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson
from electro-pop band FM Belfast
was hired to compose the score
and recorded the title song togeth-
er with the main actress, using a
song she had learned in Zambia as
the foundation.
“Kanema is heavily involved in
music which plays a very big role
in this film,” says
Anna Þóra. “She’s
studying jazz sing-
ing, and always
listening to music.
She's always been
very curious about
African music as
well, so we thought
it would be a great
idea for her to in-
vestigate her musi-
cal background in Zambia.”
For Kanema, the way people ex-
press themselves through music
is the biggest difference between
Zambian and Icelandic culture.
“On whatever occasion people start
dancing and singing,” the actress
says. “It doesn't matter if you can
actually sing or dance, it’s more
about the spirit of it. In Iceland, we
are more closed and shy. In Zam-
bia, they are very joyful. They val-
ue spending family time together
more than Icelanders usually do.”
Mother and daughter
As we can all imagine, being con-
stantly filmed by your mother—or
by anyone for that matter—can
be uncomfortable. When Anna
Þóra and Guðbergur Davíðsson,
the co-producer, were discussing
filming Kanema at her lunch break
in school, she had to draw the line.
In the end, however, the expe-
rience brought the family closer
together. “Kanema has been a big
part of the production, in more
ways than just being in front of
the camera,” Anna Þóra explains.
“She's been looking through the
rough cuts with me. We didn’t al-
ways agree on all the shots, but we
managed to reach a compromise,
and it brought us closer.” Kanema
agrees. “It was nice working to-
gether,” she says. “The whole expe-
rience was surrounded by positive
vibes.”
After the suc-
cess at Skjaldborg,
the film is now set
for public screen-
ing in Bíó Paradís
on September 7th.
“It was a wonder-
ful experience pre-
miering the film at
Skjaldborg,” the di-
rector smiles. “It’s
a small audience, but I hope after
winning there it will be easier to
take the film to a broader audience
in Iceland, and possibly interna-
tionally.”
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Mother and daughter win at Skjaldborg
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