To mark World Malaria Day 2020, PSI called on us to travel around Cote d’Ivoire and tell the story of how health professionals are working hard to push back the spread of Malaria in the West African nation.

Overcoming Language Barriers

Being a French-speaking country, our first step was to find a producer with an excellent command of French and English to help with interpretations. This we found in Joyce, a private French instructor based in Nairobi who has a solid background in production.

Our filming was scheduled for the first week of March, just when the impact of the Coronavirus was increasing worldwide. Luckily, travel restrictions had not been put in place and we were able to travel from Nairobi to Abidjan without a hassle.

Upon our arrival at Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Abidjan, we had our first screening for Coronavirus, which involved hand sanitisation, a temperature check, and filling a passenger information sheet. Masks weren’t necessary and very few travellers were wearing them.

Filming in Mouyassue

Our first shoot location was Mouyassue, about an hour and a half’s drive east of Abidjan. We filmed at a health centre I’d visited in 2019 when on a photography assignment. I loved the energy of the senior midwife had and requested to get her story on film.

Filming was done with the Sony A7iii with a variety of lenses. I used the Feelworld 6-inch monitor as my primary display. It is easier to confirm sharpness on a large monitor than the screen that comes with the camera. Sound was recorded using a lapel mic into a Zoom H4N recorder. Though we had lights with us, we found the natural light to be adequate.

Next we visited a mother who lives by a palm tree plantation, not far from the Mouyassue Health Centre. I’d photographed her in 2019 when she was expectant.

It was great seeing her again, healthy 4-month old baby in hand.

We had to overcome several language barriers to conduct her interview : a doctor with PSI would ask the question in French, a gentleman (in purple) would repeat the question to the mother in a Togolese language, her response would be translated from the Togolese language into French by the gentleman, and Joyce would confirm to me in English that her response was conclusive to the question originally asked in French.

Filming in Ouellé

Next we drove for 7 hours to Awole Hospital in Ouellé, a few kilometres north of Daoukro where we did an interview with the senior midwife.

We also got to speak with a mother who was receiving pre natal care to ensure her pregnancy remained malaria free. Her story became the focus of our film.

When we had finished filming the mother and her son (R) and were packing our bags for the day, we noticed the son’s friend sulking in the corner. He had come to play with his friend earlier and found him being filmed. So he ran home, took a bath, put on clean clothes and came back so that he too could be filmed. Now here we were, packing our bags ready to leave without him having had his moment in front of the camera.

I really felt for him and decided to have a one-light portrait photography session just for the two of them. He had an even larger smile when he saw his image on the camera screen.

I hope to one day get prints of this image to both of them.

Back to Abidjan

After filming in Ouellé, we returned to Abidjan to capture some establishing shots for the film.

We spoke to the police, asked if we could film and they agreed. One of the officers also agreed for us to have a selfie with him. Merci officier!

After a week of filming and several days of edit, below is the film we created.