Kei Kamara: Leone Star, Great Guy

Today, we finally had the chance to speak with Kei Kamara on camera. We knew Kei would be a great interview—look no further than this YouTube clip of his Michael Jackson goal celebration to know that the guy is comfortable in front of the camera.

We imagine a lot of our readers are based in the tri-state area. You might not follow Major League Soccer and if you do, you probably support one of the teams along the Eastern seaboard. Let us tell you a bit about Kei.

Back home in Kansas City, Kei plays for Sporting KC. If you grew up going to MLS camps, you probably know Sporting better as the Kansas City Wizards. In the last year, they dropped that name, opened arguably the best soccer facility in the country and sold an insane amount of season tickets.

For a newly rebranded team trying to win fans to soccer, Kei is a publicist’s dream. Personable, funny and a social media machine, he’s accessible to his fans, a force on the pitch and a humanitarian off of it (we first connected with him through our mutual support of Schools for Salone). Kei shared the spotlight with fellow Kansas City resident Chad Ochocinco, a surprisingly big soccer fan, when the two exchanged friendly barbs over Twitter. Sadly, when the media-loving Ochocinco pulled a reverse Tony Meola and laced up his soccer boots during the lockout, Kei was on national team duty and the pair never faced off in their long-anticipated penalty kick shootout. Kei has now earned eight appearances (caps, for the uninformed) for Sierra Leone’s national team and he’s still seeking his first international goal.

His fans in Kansas City—and there are many that wear his #23—know Kei as a fun-loving, Chipolte-eating, snowball-fighting star that often Tweets from the handle he created for his dog, @ChelseaTheDog23. Admittedly, that’s how we knew him before today. We knew a bit about his history, but Google can only take you so far. Today, we got a chance to see Kei represent his nation—not by wearing the green, white and blue, but by showing us a spirit of hope unbroken by years of war and everything that comes after.

In the States or in Salone, it’s easy to forget what Kei’s been through. Laughter comes easily to him and between drills, you’ll catch him with his teammates, hamming it up for our cameras, or, as he says shamelessly, flirting with the fans. But talk to him for a bit and it’s evident that, no matter how fast he is with a ball at his feet, he can’t outrun the pain of a wartime childhood.

Moments after we started rolling today, he began talking about when the war came to him. He was only six when the rebels attacked. He knew there was a war on, but didn’t think much about it until the explosion rocked his school. Though his family had told him to stay put if the rebels invaded, six-year-old Kei fled with the rest of his classmates and teachers. As aimless bullets ripped into the crowd around him, familiar faces fell to the ground. Kei stopped running. He didn’t see his brothers. They were older than he was and they weren’t in the same class. What if they had listened to their parents? They’d have stayed sitting at their desks. He had to go find them. He remembers stepping on and over the bodies of the people from his village as his tiny frame pushed against the current of the fleeing masses. But that’s all he remembers. The rest is a blur. He says he somehow found his brothers and they must have made it home together. But home didn’t stay home for long—forced to flee, Kei bounced around West Africa before finally landing in California.

Eventually, Kei’s journey—and his skill on the pitch—brought him back home, where he wore the colors of his country and stood on the crab grass field in front of thousands of his countrymen as the strains of his national anthem played. Kei is a hero to the Leone Stars supporters who will chant his name tomorrow. This country loves its football, after all. But Kei is more than that. His story, remarkable as it is, is echoed by everyone in this country. Each of those supporters has their own story of pain and loss. Somehow, they all survived together. Somehow, they managed to keep their hope alive. And now, somehow, they’re all managing to heal together. Wearing the jersey or not, Kei is a symbol for Sierra Leone and the country’s resilience. When a guy like him makes it, it’s a victory for the entire country.

Damn, we want him to score tomorrow.

Much love,

The Brownstones Crew

Shooting Training With the Leone Stars... In a Monsoon

We’ve been to Sierra Leone’s national stadium before. Three years ago, we toured it, partially because it’s played an important role in the country’s history as it’s where the president proclaimed that the “War don don,” or that the war was over, but mainly because we’re soccer fans (and, in Chad’s case, an ex-college star from Vermont, where soccer is huge). When we visited, FIFA had just deemed the stadium unsuitable for play.

Despite talking about the development of the country in our last post, looking just at the national soccer team, it’s hard to say that much has changed.

Scrub crabgrass covers the pitch. Two days before gameday, it was still unlined, leaving the 18 a general area up for debate. Drainage, a seeming must in the rainy season, was non-existent. Even before the intense rain began pouring down, the ball would come to a sudden stop in puddles.

It’s hard to believe that this team is trying to qualify for the same World Cup that features teams like England and Spain. Even in high school, if our field was under siege from rain in the days before a game, we practiced somewhere else. You’d be hardpressed to find a team playing in worse conditions. It’s surely a change for Kei Kamara, who we’ve come to profile today. In the States’ Major League Soccer, Kei plays with Sporting KC, whose stadium numbers among the best soccer facilities in the country.

Still, the conditions of the field or the absolute downpour didn’t deter Kei, his teammates or the hundreds of fans that came to watch.

From a film perspective, shooting in the rain was one of the most technical challenges we’ve ever faced. The rain came down hard—and sideways. It drenched us—in retrospect, we probably should’ve brought more rain gear—and the equipment. We constantly were wiping down the lenses and feared that the material would be useless.

And of course, by useless, we mean EPIC. Rocking our new variable frame rate camera, Chad shot amazing slow motion footage of Kei—the pouring rain, the vibrant green, white and blue of the stadium bleachers, the mud flying everywhere—it all contributed to beautiful footage that we can’t wait to share with you.

Tomorrow, we will be back at the stadium, filming the training, before meeting up with Kei to shoot an interview. If it’s anything like today, we expect it to be a special day.

Much love,

The Brownstones Crew

Development Abound in Salone

Those of you that know the Copper Pot team personally know that we are made up of former athletes. Ok, athletes might be a stretch—let’s call us gym class heroes. Today, we merged our athletic prowess with our love of cinema. The result? An epic shoot in Sierra Leone’s national stadium amidst a downpour.

Let’s back it up for a minute. Last time we were in Salone, it was April, which, apparently, is the best time to visit. We can get down with that. The weather was gorgeous; albeit a bit hot and sticky, but beautiful blue skies met gently breaking waves that lapped against the shore in front of our hotel. Soccer matches were strewn about the beach. Countless beach bars serving Star beer, chicken, fish and rice dotted the white sand. When the tide came in, it washed over our feet as we sat in plastic chairs. It was, simply put, quite delightful.

Flashfoward to the Salone return of the Brownstones crew. We had longed for a return since we left in 2008 and once the final brick of the school was put in place, it was only a matter of time before our return. When it turned out that the day the new school opened for business fell only two days after an African Cup of Nations qualifier between Sierra Leone and Egypt, we figured we had to be there, rainy season be damned. Plus, we had heard we’d be here at the tail end of the monsoons—that might not be the correct meteorological term, but that sure is what it felt like.

It was a simple start to the day. After sleeping til well after noon like a bunch of college kids, Clay, Chad and Dave opted to go for a run along the beach road to jolt themselves back to life. Naturally, it was at this instant Salone chose to show us how vicious her rainy season could be. Torrents of rain poured down upon us, giant puddles covered the road, sand was ripped out to sea. It was a hell of a start.

Soon thereafter, we met with Abu, our guide and driver for the trip. Abu had come recommended to us by Schools for Salone, an organization that you know all about if you know anything about Copper Pot or BROWNSTONES TO RED DIRT. If you happened to find your way here as a new reader, suffice it to say that SFS is the amazing US-based organization that made our dream of building a school here in Salone a reality. We love them. You should too.

The first task we needed Abu’s expertise with was exchanging money. Not hard, you say? Well, last time, when we exchanged money, we did it on what was commonly referred to as the “black market.” This process consisted of parking in a shady part of town and having our then-guide haggle over exchange rates with men who certainly didn’t spend their days as bank tellers. Better rates were given for newer bills and higher denominations. It was a baffling process that seemed to take forever.

Today, Abu told us it wouldn’t take “any time at all”—good news, considering we lingered a bit long at lunch and thought we were running about a half hour late to meet Kei Kamara at the national stadium.

Knowing that what seems like a “short while” in West Africa can seem agonizingly long to an American, we hopped in the car, doubt coursing through the SUV that would serve as our transport for the week. We were in for a shock.

Not only did the drive take less than 10 minutes, but the route that we took followed the same we drove every day to the Children in Crisis Primary School. We were blown away by the changes. In three short years, developments had sprung up all along the road. Yes, there is still unimaginable poverty—that hadn’t changed. But there were signs everywhere of foreign and local investment: developments like condo complexes, shopping centers and gas stations. It was simply amazing.

When Abu pulled into a supermarket where we were to change money, we all pooled our cash, expecting the black market back alleys we knew from last time. We started to hand it to him, knowing he’d get a better rate, but he told us the four of us should change our own money. Admittedly skeptical, we walked in to be greeted by a friendly staff and an exchange rate better than advertised than what we saw in the US. We poked around the store and were surprised to see that the store offered many of the comforts of home—from Snickers bars to Jack Daniels and Gilette razors. These brands may be thought to be international and readily available, but last time we were here, we have no such memory.

Of course, there’s a lot that can be written by a lot smarter people about development in a third world country than the chuckleheads here at Copper Pot. And, of course, as of this point in the trip, our shooting schedule hasn’t brought us much past the reaches of the tourist section of Freetown, so we have yet to see how far the development extends, but it was encouraging to see the growth. In our film, Balla, one of the children from Sierra Leone, says that Sierra Leone is a good place and “everyone should come to Salone.” In the last three years, it seems like that message has gotten out to the people. It seems like people are starting to believe in Salone again—from what we saw three years ago, there’s no reason not to.

Much love,

The Brownstones Crew

Returning to Visit Friends

Welcome back to the BROWNSTONES TO RED DIRT blog! If you’ve kept up with us on Twitter, you know that sometime earlier this summer, we heard that the school that we built with Schools for Salone (SFS) would open officially on Monday, September 5th. We had to be there for that. When we began booking our trip, it turned out that friend of SFS, Kei Kamara, a Major League Soccer star and Sierra Leone international player, would be in Freetown playing in an African Cup of Nations qualifier against Egypt on September 3rd. The rest just fell into place: from September 1st-4th, we’d film a profile with Kei, on September 5th, we’d open the school, and on Tuesday, September 6th, we’d host the African premiere of BROWNSTONES TO RED DIRT, with the kids from Salone in attendance as guests of honor.

We’ve had a lot of time to think about our return to Sierra Leone—not just the three years since we last visited, but the last 20-some hours (and counting) of our journey. We’ve spent a lot of those minutes in planes and airport bars talking about what it was like last time and what we can expect when we land in just under three hours.

As we regaled our composer (and Salone first-timer) Josh Johnson with tales of beach-side bars and pickup football matches with the kids, Chad wondered aloud if our three year absence has made us romanticize the experience of our last trip. The question hung in the air briefly, but our introspection was punctured when our waitress offered us beers to go with our breakfast (we politely declined, however, there are several complimentary—and empty—cans of Stella currently residing on our seatback trays).

Chad’s question remained unanswered until we boarded the plane and strains of Krio echoed through the cabin. I don’t know that any of us understand the complex mix of tribal language and English any more today than we did three years ago, but unlike last time, when it felt foreign and intimidating, today, it was a gentle welcome back to the embrace of a place to which we have longed to return. A place where harsh challenges like stifling heat and gridlock traffic we may have romanticized, but whose relationships we certainly have not.

We’re not so bold to expect that we’re returning as anything more than visitors, observers to a culture wildly different than our own, but there is a major difference this time: we’re returning to see friends, not documentary subjects.

Speaking candidly (and at the risk of sounding like completely obnoxious film school d-bags), we have found the relationship between us as filmmakers and the subjects we profile to be extremely complex. It runs the risk of being exploitative and beneficial to the filmmaker while leaving the subject exposed and vulnerable. We had only three weeks to work with the kids in Salone and managed to build enough of friendship and trust for them to tell us their stories. But still, when you have a camera stuck in someone’s face, especially a kid whose language you don’t speak, there’s a barrier.

But over these last three years, that barrier has come down. Sure, thanks to a subpar infrastructure, the letters we exchange are few and far between, and when we do get them, they’re written with an air of formality surely coached by their teachers and guardians. But our relationships continued to grow.

Among the remarkable moments this trip promises—attending the school opening, hosting the premiere of and working with Kei but a few among them—the moment I think we’re all the most excited for is seeing the kids again. Not with the cameras rolling, mind you, but hanging out with them around the old mango tree near the orphanage—hearing their stories, telling our own, reminiscing over our shared memories from three years ago—catching up, just like friends do.

We hope you’ll enjoy the journey and know that you all helped make it possible.

Much love,

-The Brownstones Crew

Come See Brownstones in Bed-Stuy!

Brownstones to Red Dirt has been invited to open the 12th Annual MoCADA KidFlix Film Festival in Bed-Stuy! We are really excited, not just because this is our first screening in the neighborhood where we made the film, but also because it's our first outdoor film festival! The film will show THIS FRIDAY, August 5th at 7 PM in Fulton Park. Fulton Park is located HERE and is accessible by taking the A or C train to Utica Avenue. The screening is FREE to all.

A Brand New School, A Return Trip to Salone

At the end of the month, we'll be embarking on a return trip to Sierra Leone to attend the opening of the BRAND NEW SCHOOL built by your efforts. We're pretty thrilled.

We're definitely going to be meeting with the kids from the film and doing a "Where are they now?" update. Follow us on Twitter (@Dave_LaMattina, @chadnwalker, @clayfrost & @Copper_Pot) where we'll post all the pictures and videos throughout the trip.

More Progress at the School Site!!