Children of God is a documentary developed from a previous short film about a solidarity project of the Association for the Development of Ivory Coast (ADESCI) and the East Asian Educational Association (EAEA), showing the rural reality of Mulajje, Uganda, a land of contrast. The director explained: “It is a group of houses in the middle of the jungle of great natural beauty and calm, but at the same subject to many dangers in the form of insects and viruses.”
As a result of Girbau’s own experience, Children of God narrates the arrival in Africa of young people from Spain, Hong Kong and Uganda with the idea of building a school, teaching classes and providing health care. “Our main inspiration was the world we discovered on arriving,” explained the UIC Barcelona graduate. “We chose not to recreate or force any scenes, and the script was built around the thoughts, conversations and reflections that arose between visitors and locals.”
The film, narrated by an anonymous woman from the small town, shows a reality that encapsulates the perceptions, thoughts and feelings of the local people about the big city. The author points out that having a local woman’s voice to narrate the story helps to give visibility to Africa, “as a small step toward equality and the normalisation of African women in leading roles”.
In Children of God, Mulajje becomes a place to share and live together. The director of the documentary spoke about the objective of the project: “Through a reality that is both local and remote we seek a universal truth. We are all brothers and sisters making up a single humanity, regardless of our colour, race, gender or social class. This is what inspired the title of the documentary: we are all equal in dignity and we are all children of the same God.”
The International Film Festival of India (IFFI-GOA) was founded in 1952 and is one of the most renowned in Asian cinema. The 54th edition of the festival was attended by stars of the film industry such as Michael Douglas and his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones. The protagonist of films like The Game has received the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence as recognition for his long and successful career.
