Life Camp Uyo
Documentary
Hardly any men get a chance to speak in the 27 minute long documentary Life Camp Uyo. Yet it is their work that determines the lives of the three portrayed women. They live with their children in a secure camp in Nigeria as dependents of European professionals employed on well-paid temporary contracts. In this “gated community” they live a comfortable life according to European standards with a supermarket, kindergarten and swimming pool, while conditions in the country outside the camp are much more dangerous and chaotic with bomb explosions and kidnappings.
Director and cinematographer Jörg Rambaum has portrayed the everyday lives of three such women and makes the contradictory situation in which they find themselves very clear. Most of the film sequences seem like snapshots, which at first glance seem rather arbitrary, but very precisely convey the feeling of life in the camp. At least among the Europeans there is a static, artificial atmosphere, which can only be guaranteed by an enormous effort on the part of security forces. With his short film, Jörg Rambaum illuminates a current global political topic from an original perspective and has also implemented this approach convincingly on film.
Life Camp Uyo was awarded the rating “Especially Valuable” by the Deutsche Film- und Medienbewertung (FBW).
Production: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Liv Scharbatke und Jörg Rambaum GbR
Editing: rnm