Filmmaker Adhel Arop uses art to confront trauma in exploring South Sudanese refugee experience
Arop's mother was a child solider in the South Sudan Liberation Army
Adhel Arop, 22, is many things — a poet, a model, a filmmaker and artist. But it is her role as a daughter that she explores most profoundly in her film Who Am I.
The film, which will be screened Aug. 27 at Werklab in Vancouver, B.C., explores Arop's experience moving to Canada when she was four years old and discovering details about her family's origins and trauma.
Arop was born in the Kakuma refugee camp, which lies in Kenya close to the border with South Sudan. She found out much later in life that her mother had been a child solider in the South Sudan Liberation Army.
"I always wanted to know more. I wanted to know why she was choosing her silence. I wanted to know why she faded into space when music was playing. I was just really curious to know who was my mom," Arop said.
Arop said it was difficult to ask direct questions of her mother, and it was people around her mother — like her aunt — who began to fill in some details.
Arop's mother fought in the Sudanese civil war, known as the Second Sudanese Civil War, which took place between 1982 and 2005. During that time, millions of people were displaced and millions more died, with famine and disease as widespread as the fighting. South Sudan officially gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
"I started to realize that my family was carrying on a legacy of war and the story just sort of shifted me and made me realize that my past is one of great trial, and I started to see the strength in my family," said Arop.
"It just became what fuelled me to create."
Watch the trailer for Who Am I:
Wanting to know more about her mother's story, and her country's story, Arop kept researching until she and her mother finally had a conversation about her past — a conversation documented in the film.
"I hope that through this creative process and through creating art, I can also empower my people and empower people in Canada to show that life is about perspective and although my family faced trauma, although we faced the war, our story is not one of weakness, it is one of strength," said Arop.
As she says in the documentary: "It's not where you come from, but who you come from."
Listen to the interview with Adhel Arop on CBC's On The Coast here:
With files from On The Coast