What Niyi Fagbemi taught me about filming culture

I watched Juju Stories three times before I understood what I was actually watching.

The first time, I was looking at the stories. The second time, I was looking at the cinematography. The third time, I started seeing something else: the camera's posture. The way it stood in relation to what it was filming.

Fagbemi doesn't observe culture from the outside. He's inside it. The camera moves like someone who belongs there — unhurried, unafraid to sit still, comfortable with silence.

That's a specific kind of filmmaking. And it's harder than it looks.

What "Inside" Actually Means

Most documentary cameras have a gaze problem. They watch subjects. They document. They translate unfamiliar things for an assumed outsider audience.

Fagbemi's camera doesn't translate. It presents. It assumes that whoever is watching can meet the material where it lives.

That's a political choice as much as an aesthetic one.

When I first started thinking about what I wanted to film here in Vaasa, I was defaulting to the translator posture. Here's this Finnish thing. Let me explain it to you. Here's what it means.

Watching Fagbemi's work made me stop and ask: who am I translating for? And what am I losing when I explain instead of just show?

The Question I'm Still Sitting With

I'm an outsider in Finland. My Finnish is basic. I didn't grow up here. I don't have the cultural memory that comes from forty years of living somewhere.

But I'm also not a tourist. I live here. I'm building a life here. I shop at the same shops every week. I have a favorite route for morning walks.

That in-between position is actually interesting. It might be the most honest place to film from.

Fagbemi's work doesn't resolve this question for me. But it makes me feel less anxious about the question itself. You don't have to pretend to be a native to film somewhere honestly. You just have to be honest about where you're standing.

One Practical Thing

He holds shots longer than you think he should.

There's a discipline in that. The temptation — especially when you're starting out — is to cut before the shot has finished saying what it needs to say. The silence feels like dead air. You want to fill it.

But the silence is often where the meaning lives. The held shot gives the subject room to reveal something that wasn't in the plan.

I've been trying to practice patience with the camera. Hold it. Wait. See what the frame wants to add before you move.

It's harder than it sounds.