Sick in Africa (the documentary series)
Premise
“Sick in Africa” temporarily follows the lives of several Muslim Yao families living in rural Mozambique as they seek assistance for sick family members. Filming took place during 2015 over a ten-month period. Cultural insiders explain what they believe about illnesses, curses, traditional medicine, western medicine, taboos, reasons why they prefer one type of medical treatment over the other, etc.
My hope is that foreign workers (health care professionals, Peace Corps volunteers, missionaries, etc.) will come to gain a greater understanding. Western medical practitioners working with refugees and immigrants can also broaden their understanding. Rather than treat beliefs as superstition and ignorance, this exploratory journey will raise other issues not often considered. Issues of social inequality between patient and health care worker, poverty, overtaxed systems, non-Western methods that may already be working, spiritual insights, and more.
About the Filmmaker
Tim Cowley first came to Africa to set up home with his young family in 2003. Twelve years later he realized he still didn’t understand many of the most basic elements of how and why his Muslim Yawo friends in the villages straddling the Malawi and Mozambique border make the choices they do when it comes to health care. And so he embarked on a ten-month journey following friends and strangers in and nearby his home village of Chanica attempting his best to peek inside their worldview. He followed them to hospitals private and government, traditional and Chinese and interviewed the sick as well as the many types of health care providers both formal and informal (spiritist, herbalists, “witch doctors”, government staff, untrained purveyors of village injections, Islamic healers and others). “Sick in Africa”, the documentary series, is a result of that journey.
Tim and his wife now live in Portland, Oregon where he works as Director of Operations for Faithful Friends, a mentoring non-profit. He continues to be involved in media production as a freelancer mostly for non-profit causes.
To see the full version of episodes 1 or 2, request special permission here.
Also available in Spanish, Portuguese and German.
2015
July 30 — guest blog post for Community Health Global Network
April — principal filming began
January — GoFundMe crowdfunding page started
2016
January — principal filming ended
March 10 — trailer uploaded to YouTube
April 6 — Bernad dies
July — first installment in series released
Sept — Episode 1 accepted into Largo Film Awards
October — Episode 1 - Portuguese version made available. The national language of Mozambique, where the stories take place, is Portuguese. While the main character Bernad did not use Portuguese around home much, it is important to have this series available in Portuguese to honor the nation in which I lived for many years and filmed these stories.
2017
Feb — Episode 1 - Spanish version made available
April-October — accepted at International Film Festival for Environment, Health & Culture (Indonesia) where it won “Award of Merit”
July — screened at New Hope Film Festival (New Hope, PA)
Fall — accepted into "Docs Without Borders Film Festival where it won “Award of Merit”
2018
January — Episode 1 screens at Chandler International Film Festival (Chandler, AZ) where it won “Best Student Film”.
2019
Episode 2 released
2020
January — updated info to FilmFreeway, trailer released
February — “Best Documentary Micro Film” award from Oregon Short Film Festival (Portland)
2021
January — German version released
February — Spanish version released, English subtitled versions become available through the Alexander Street online platform catering to educational institutions and libraries. (English versions will no longer be free and publicly accessible through our Vimeo channel without special permission.)
April — screening at Austin Micro Short Film Festival (Texas)
Sept — worked with anthropologist Dr. Arianna Huhn to outline upcoming episodes and craft stories that will cater better to academic audiences
Testimonials - Episode 1
Mike Berry, former HOD Pharmacy DeptCOM Blantyre, Malawi (28 July 2016)
“This is terrific and should be viewed by every medical, pharmacy and laboratory science student training at the College of Medicine in Blantyre… It illustrates so many of the problems health care professionals have to overcome. I could use it here in UK too.”
Joanne Beale, British volunteer in Mozambique (29 July 2016)
“…This story mirrors so many that we encountered in Mozambique and Tim’s film shows so many of the different challenges of health care in Moz from a lack of education, to equipment with instructions in Italian, to the tensions between traditional healers, witchcraft and medicine. If you want to understand more about what we’ve been experiencing over the last couple of years or simply wish to feel more grateful for the NHS (or other health services for non British friends) please have a watch.”
Dr. Alan Thorold, anthropologist (8 Aug 2016)
“Great ethnographic film about health challenges in rural Mozambique.”
Cam Beeck (26 July 2016)
“…you’ve done a brilliant job at capturing the complexities and despair around healthcare out here. Make sure you watch this y’all…”
C.R. Oldham (27 July 2016)
“…What an amazing job. I know I’ve never been to Africa, but something about your camera work and lack of narration (using only subtitles) gave me the feeling of being transported away to a place I’d never visited. Something else funny–when Bernad gets his diagnosis and says essentially ‘I’m just a poor farmer! I knew nobody would try to curse me!’ I had a brief vision of my own grandfather, who would say something very similar. I found it fascinating because in that instant skin color, cultural differences, language barriers just faded away and I was left looking at a man who could have been my grandfather facing the human condition…”
Connie Wragge (August 2016)