By: Jabrenee Hussie
Roopa Gogineni is a photographer, an award-winning filmmaker, and a photojournalist from West Virginia now based in both Paris and Atlanta. In this episode, Roopa Gogineni talks with AMTLab Podcast Producer, Jabrenee Hussie, about photojournalism and filmmaking. With a background in Diplomatic History and African Studies, Roopa shares her experiences as a freelance filmmaker and photographer working in East Africa. She highlights the importance of mindfulness and responsible storytelling as one documents significant events in lands that aren’t their own. Roopa also discusses one of her notable works, SuddenlyTV that documents a portion of the Sundanese Revolution that earned the SXSW Special Jury Award and experiences from the creation of that piece.
transcript
Jabrenee Hussie
Welcome to another episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast series of the Arts Management and Technology Laboratory. The goal of our podcast series is to exchange ideas, bring awareness and stay on top of the trends. My name is Jabrenee Hussie, the Podcast Producer for AMT lab, my pronouns are she/her. Today I'm joined by Roopa Gogineni, a photographer, a filmmaker, and photojournalist from West Virginia now based between Paris and Atlanta. She has lived in Nairobi developing practices rooted in co-creation working alongside communities across the region, directed reality TV in Somalia, and documented revolutionary Theatre in Sudan. Speaking of Sudan, her latest short Suddenly TV, which is about magical thinking and revolution earned the 2023 SXSW Special Jury Award, and the 2023, IndieLisboa Short Film Grand Prize. How did you get into photography and filmmaking?
Roopa Gogineni
I was always into photography and into cameras. And I took a couple of photography classes when I was in university, but I didn't know how to make a career out of it. I was also really interested in working internationally. You know, I went to a liberal arts school and I studied History and African Studies, and I was just interested in a lot of things. And so I sort of graduated not, not having a clear idea of what I wanted to do for work. And I applied to many different jobs, none of which I got. And I sort of, on a whim, emailed this photographer, who, who, whose work I had presented in a photography class, who lived in Nairobi, and I had spent some time in Nairobi on an internship and was studying Swahili and asked if I could be his assistant. And he wrote back and said, Yes. And then I went to Kenya, and worked with him, and then another photographer for a few months. And that was, that was sort of it. It was the way that they got to kind of experience the world. The first job that I'd had in Nairobi, the summer before this internship was at an NGO, and it was in a regional office of a big international NGO, in a communications department and it just felt so far removed from any actual work, like all we were doing was writing reports about reports. And it, yeah, it just felt kind of hollow. And yeah, the photojournalist. The work of photojournalism is like, very engaged, and sort of, on the ground, and with people, and that was way more fun for me.
Jabrenee Hussie
Sounds fun.
Roopa Gogineni
Yeah.
Jabrenee Hussie
We have a BA in Diplomatic History and African Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master's in African Studies from the University of Oxford, how does your education influence your work?
Roopa Gogineni
So my education in a number of ways, so I, I moved to Kenya and started working as a journalist, and the fact that I had read a lot of history and read a lot about the politics of East Africa, and specifically Somalia, and Sudan, was really helpful in terms of, you know, working as a journalist, like I had kind of this social political history that was really valuable. And then, I guess another another reason that my education kind of gave me I think, an interesting perspective, was that my master's degree it was an African studies but I I wrote a dissertation on newsgathering in Somalia, and I knew at that point, when I when I went to grad school, I knew that I wanted to be a journalist and to work in journalism. So I sort of shaped my grad degree into a massive networking exercise. And, and, you know, spent my fieldwork, just talking to as many journalists and editors as I could, and, and it was great in terms of just meeting a lot of people but it was also it's, I learned about how editorial agendas were set, which was really disturbing actually, because you at the time, it was, you know, news was was online or was increasingly online. And there was a lot of analytics that were being collected. And data became really important in determining what stories were made. So it was sort of this consumption of news that was driving the production of news. And so that kind of knowledge also helped me understand the kind of work that I wanted to make, which was often really hard to pitch because it wasn't like, obviously, one of the stories, you know, for example, like in Somalia, they kept writing about pirates. I mean, piracy was definitely an issue, but people consumed pirate stories a lot. And so it was sort of this chicken and egg thing. And, you know, I knew that I didn't want to write those stories or make those stories. So it was like, it was also an education in learning, sort of what I was up against when I started working. Yeah, that's, that's what I would say is down to my schooling. Has this helped my career?
Jabrenee Hussie
Wow. So you're a freelance photographer and filmmaker, what are some of the challenges and triumphs of being freelance?
Roopa Gogineni
This is a good question. So when I finished grad school, I moved to Kenya, and I was told by a friend that he might hire me for this position at Al Jazeera Swahili, which was going to be launched, and that's sort of why, you know, I moved there with this hope. And then I'll just hear Swahili never got off the ground, because they pulled the funding and started Al Jazeera America. RIP, and so that I, you know, had no full time job. And I was sort of scrambling and doing a lot of random things I wrote for Kenyan papers. I wrote art reviews. I did a lot of radio, freelancing, and work. And yeah, and was just hustling. And now, you know, I haven't ever had a full time journalism job, which for a long time I wanted. But now, I wanted it because of the financial stability and because my expenses were never paid. And that was always really, really hard. So like, if I wanted to go to Burundi, for example, to report then I would nobody, none of my clients would pay for the flight or the accommodation. So I would buy a flight, stay with somebody's friend, and then file like 10 stories that would maybe cover the flight, and my food. So yeah, I just wanted a full time job because I wanted somebody to cover these basic expenses. But now I'm, I'm really enjoying being freelance because I work in multiple spaces and with different mediums and I have just so much freedom in how I make things where I make things. And that is a real gift.
Jabrenee Hussie
Wow. So you've been like all over the world? How does the film industry and the types of content that are popular differ around the world in your opinion?
Roopa Gogineni
Big difference in. Yeah, I mean, so as a filmmaker, the, you know, most money for, for the projects that I'm working on, comes from either North America, or Europe. I work mostly in East Africa, and I'm working in India, but there's no financing there. So it's mostly, you know, kind of Western funders that are funding these projects. But there's a huge difference in the film landscape in continental Europe, and in North America, UK, I'd say like the Anglophone world, is one bucket. And then continental Europe is another big bucket. And I think continental Europe, and to a lesser extent, the UK is way more connected to the rest of the world, if that makes sense. In terms of the kinds of films that are, yeah, that gets sort of circulated or funded. And, yeah, in the US, there's a lot of market pressure. You know, the market shapes the films weigh more than in Europe, because there's a lot of state support in Europe. And the box office is not, you know, people aren't thinking about whether this film will make money, whereas here they most certainly are. And that totally shapes what the film is.
Jabrenee Hussie
Does this affect how you create personally?
Roopa Gogineni
Yeah, yeah. So I live in France now, which was for this very reason. I'm American, but I, I'm, I find it very hard to make the kind of work that I want to make, and have it supported in an American landscape.
Jabrenee Hussie
So this March, I had the opportunity of going to SXSW, and it was a struggle to be able to go to try to get to this premiere. So I see that suddenly TV was rewarded in 2023. Congratulations, first of all, so what is it like on the Creator side? You know, to put your film in to get these accolades. What is that like for you?
Roopa Gogineni
Yeah. Um, that festival was crazy. I mean, that fest, I just, I'm used to, I'd never seen anything like it, you know, just the scale of it. The corporate nature of it was, I mean, sorry, to be honest, it was alarming for me to have all of these things that had these big corporate sponsors, but still a pass costing over $1,000 is, I think, a big problem. And kind of sums up my problem with the industry. And, yeah, it was really funny, because I actually, of course, it's a huge, I say that but, at the same time, I have a huge amount of respect for the filmmakers, and the work that was there and the programmers, you know, I don't think this is the kind of fault of any individual or team necessarily, I think it's just a system issue. But yeah, I enjoyed seeing films there and meeting, meeting other filmmakers. I got to see Boots Riley, who's my hero. And then I actually left, before the award ceremony, because I had a doctor's appointment I had to get back to, in Paris. And so I was completely shocked. Totally shocked. Also, just because I think the films that I saw, and a lot of the people, you know, it's also at SXSW. So there's like famous people here, there's like Hollywood people there. And my film is like, it's like, kind of a homemade homemade is not the right word. But you know, I, there's no like big teams. It's sort of like, it felt like, yeah, I guess I was surprised that it was, I mean, I was really honored that it wasn't, but it was really surprising that it won. And I am sad that I missed it.
Jabrenee Hussie
Okay, so in your work you examine and bring to light the realities of the world. Most recently, Sudan with TV, what leads you towards documentary film instead of narrative film to tell the stories?
Roopa Gogineni
By chance, I'm interested in narrative films. And recently, my film has been programmed in Europe and a lot of shorts festivals that are non you know, they're both narrative and documentary. And so I'm meeting all these narrative filmmakers. I'm like, How do you do that? How do you make that thing? And for me, I don't even mean, I just know how to make documentaries because I am coming from journalism. I have this kind of, yeah, this sort of journalistic sensitivity, I guess. And it's just what I know. And I think also what I was saying earlier about, I've never worked with big teams, so I don't know and I'm really kind of colossally bad at managing people or like being a boss or something like I don't have any interest in that. So I think even though I'm interested in narrative, and fiction work, the prospect of having to hire people kind of terrifies me. So that's another reason that I like documentaries. It's like a thing that I can kind of, you know, I can sort of do all the parts by myself. I am working now with other people. But yeah.
Jabrenee Hussie
So AMTLAB focuses on the intersection of arts and technology. What kind of technology and equipment do you use in your work in photojournalism and filmmaking?
Roopa Gogineni
I, for me, just don't want it to get in the way. Like, that's my, I use as small of a rig as I can. And I use things that can shoot in low light, that's like my big kind of requirements. So I used to shoot everything, both photo and documentary film on a Canon 5D, starting with a Mark II, Mark III then a Mark IV because it was, you know, like a workhorse that does everything. And then I would have a shotgun mic attachment, and then I would have a lav and then a zoom and run that and then put it in a, you know, a pouch, and that was my kit. But then I realized that it was really hard, because there were times when people would hire me to shoot photos and videos. And you, you really can't do both at the same time, even though your camera technically does. And for me, it was actually important to separate out the kits. So now, I have a photo kit and a video kit. And now actually, the latest video camera I bought is like a little Panasonic camcorder that shoots HD, which is great. You know, it's really high quality and it's light. And I think my next project is going to be a film. The form that I'm interested in kind of working within is like a skate video style. So yeah, I'd say tech, you know, the tech stuff, and the gear stuff is not something I think that much about to be honest.
Jabrenee Hussie
Um, last question, your work shines a light on a lot of unheard stories around the world. How do you choose which stories to tell? And how far to go when you're telling them?
Roopa Gogineni
How far can I go? Meaning like, how much to travel or like how, like into the thing,
Jabrenee Hussie
how into it because you know, sometimes there's a line, there's a, there's a boundary where this is too much, or this is personal to this environment, this should stay here stay with these people and not be seen by the outside. Like, where do you draw basically, where do you draw that line?
Roopa Gogineni
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question that we should all think about. Yeah, I work, I've pretty much exclusively worked in places where I'm not from. And so I that's a, you know, you have to just be so conscious of not being kind of extractive and not parachuting in, and what is the thing that you're adding? Right? Like, why are you telling this? Is there somebody here that could do it better? And for me, I'm often in places where there's not a lot of journalists, if any journalists, so it feels like just actually documenting the thing is, is it important for, you know, for posterity? I do. I do think there are things that I don't feel comfortable doing. And I don't do them. Like, for example, right now, I'm, I'm working on a film. And it's about a teenager. And there were some questions like, oh, did you go film at home? Did you go film at school, and my team and I did that intentionally? Like it wasn't. It wasn't important to the story. And it also just felt like, that's not really a space that we want to cross into. And we also, you know, when you ask somebody who you're filming with, can we do this? Asking is often there's not? I think, people often don't feel like they can say no, you know, and so there's a lot of times when I just won't even you know, I won't even ask because to ask is to put pressure in some way. Right? So yeah, I think the other thing is like, for example, suddenly TV is a film about one protest in the revolution in Sudan's revolution and I, unfortunately, there has not been many films that have come out about the revolution in Sudan, which is a shame because it's really incredible, important thing that happened. But the reason that there aren't films is because most of the filmmakers really like participating in the revolution. And so it wasn't the, they had more of a primary role. And then a lot of them lost their hard drives, like they were taken. And even more were lost last April when the war began, and people left their homes very quickly, and things were confiscated. So it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, I feel kind of strange about the success of this film, because I wish there were a bunch of other Sudanese filmmakers and films out there. And they're, and they're coming now actually, there's been there's a lot of films that I that I know are like, kind of late in production and an edit and but yeah, I, I felt like my role in telling the story was, I'm going to tell this very specific slice, you know, the slice of, you know, a portrait of one protest in this big revolution. It's definitely not my place to tell the story of the revolution. And yeah,
Jabrenee Hussie
well, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to another episode of Tech in the art, you know, look out for new episodes coming to you very soon. If found this episode, informative, educational or inspirational. Be sure to send this to another arts or technology aficionado in your life. You can let us know what you think of this podcast by visiting our website amt-lab.org. That's a-m-t dash l-a-b dot O R G. Or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram at Tech in the Arts or Facebook and LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab.