Introducing Moment of Truth: Movieline's Spotlight on Up-and-Coming Documentaries

Absolutely. The footage looks amazing, and it really completes the arc and makes the movie. But did you approach building your film and your footage around it?

Egi: This was really the most important thing for the film. We got... I don't even know how many hours of film. At least four or five hours. They did much more than we even did; they were there for two or three weeks. It was filmed on 16-millimeter and then put on tapes. We got all the tapes; unfortunately the film was lost. Or we couldn't find it. So we just edited it on videotape. The hardest part was just trying to figure out which ones we would use. There are so many great things in there.

The movie as a whole is so cinematic, narratively and visually, in ways many viewers don't instinctively attribute to documentaries.

Egi: We didn't arrange anything. It wouldn't have worked anyway, because this guy's not an actor. Especially the Army; they were not very happy about us filming them, so at first there was a little bit of conflict.

Aebi: We had to twist their thumbs to let us film them.

Ebi: Yeah. I had no idea what to expect when we got to Araouane. I couldn't know, really. There weren't a lot of people there who would remember us. I told my cameraman, "Let's shoot what we can see and what we can get on the way to Araouane." And that's the reality we show. There was no script. We just knew we had to get there and see what it looks like and see how how the people react. I hoped that when we arrived, it would be like the [old] footage -- that everybody's running to the car. But there was nobody there in the beginning. But that's fine! That's the reality. It's changed; people are different. It wasn't how I hoped it would be for the film, but I think it was just how it had to be.

Ernst, your brother suggested you should "get a life" because you visit Araouane and travel on the cheap despite being independently wealthy. What's your response?

Aebi: Well, it's silly. He knows I'm not traveling with push-taxis and local busses and riverboats or whatever because it's less expensive. It's because it's more interesting! I'm going to a backpacker's hostel, or I'll sleep outside with local people as opposed to sleeping in a multi-star hotel.Who the hell wants to be there? People on a business trip? Or maybe on a golf trip? Whatever. I don't want to meet those. I want to meet the backpackers who have the fun that I also have. I mean, I go to those other places, too. But I'm not going here to save money. I'm going because it's more fun.

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