Copyright : The Hartford Courant
9:49 p.m. EDT, October 11, 2011
When Mia Farrow first suggested that she videotape the traditions and rituals of the peoples from the Darfur region of the Sudan, refugee camp leaders were skeptical.
She said they asked her: “Will this bring us more food? Make the water cleaner? Bring us health care? Help us get home? … What good is this?”
But Farrow, the actor, humanitarian and Connecticut resident, promised to stand on the edge of the refugee camp every day for a month, ready to videotape a song or dance or any other custom if anyone was interested. At first it seemed that no one was.
“And then we heard the sound of drums beating and ululating. … We heard before we saw, maybe 2,000 people approaching, and they didn’t understand the concept of the limits of the camera, that we could only photograph within 6 feet,” Farrow said Monday in an interview. “They began setting up all around us.”
Farrow created 35 hours of video, documenting a culture that was in danger of being lost as the refugees — the victims of genocide, displaced from their homelands for years and suffering severe deprivations and illness in the camps — no longer performed rituals tied to the land or to celebration and joy.
Farrow taped demonstrations of farming methods, dances and song, children’s stories and wedding ceremonies, giving children who are growing up in the camps a chance to learn about their own heritage.
“Thank you for reminding us to remember,” Farrow recalled one camp leader telling her as the videotaping progressed.
“In my whole life, nothing struck my heart deeper,” Farrow said Monday, “than that one unadorned sentence.”
In early 2010, Farrow called the University of Connecticut to see if it might be interested in artifacts that had been given to her on her numerous trips to the Sudan, to Chad and to the region.
Valerie Love, who was then a human rights archivist at the university’s Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, remembers telling Farrow that the center wasn’t the right place for artifacts but that it would be very interested in her videos, photographs and journals.
An agreement was struck, and the Dodd Center now houses the collection of Farrow’s work related to her advocacy in Africa, especially in Darfur. It includes her documentation of the cultural traditions of the Darfuris and also personal stories of Darfuri people since the genocide began in 2003.
Farrow said that a visitor to a refugee camp first hears about deprivation — how much has been lost, how people haven’t had cooking oil or soap for months or years.
“The plastic sheeting that once covered them is now torn to shreds by the baking sun and the rains,” she said. Then they move on to describe how their lives have changed “dramatically and horrifyingly.”
Beyond that, though, are the recollections of what Darfuris’ ordinary life used to be like.
In a written account of her experience, Farrow said one community leader told her: “You know us very well. You know we are in mourning. We are suffering. We do not do these celebrations in the camps.”
This week, UConn posted a short video on YouTube, culled from Farrow’s collection, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN0CNcx4LDQ. A website, sudan.uconn.edu, also includes Farrow’s materials, as does Farrow’s own website, miafarrow.org.
Asked why she chose UConn, Farrow said Monday that she approached UConn on the advice of a friend who noted that she lives in Connecticut and asked, “Why wouldn’t you go there?”
Love, who no longer works at UConn, said, “She’s a Connecticut resident, she has a son who currently attends UConn, and we have a strong human rights program, so I think it was just a good fit.”
When she talked to Love, Farrow said, she was convinced that UConn’s Dodd Center was “absolutely the right place to put the archives,” partly because it would make the work available to many online.
Farrow said she wants people everywhere to be able to learn about this culture, but that she also especially wanted to create an archive so that Darfuris in the future can learn about their own heritage.
Betsy Pittman, university archivist at the Dodd Center, said that Farrow’s donation was “significant particularly … because this is an individual viewpoint of the atrocities and what’s going on in Darfur and Sudan in the hope of attracting attention. … We do have photojournalists’ collections, but she’s not a photojournalist. She’s not a documentary filmmaker. She is doing this because she is passionately concerned and she thinks others should be as well.”
Pittman said that Farrow’s work allows people to “go online and see some of these dances and conversations and songs, as well as stories of individual people. … It’s fabulous.”
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