Nsenene

Directed by
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'If we catch enough grasshoppers, we can survive.'

Nsenene - meaning long horned grasshoppers in the language of Luganda, one of Uganda's main dialects- is a documentary following Ibrah, a resident of the south Ugandan town Masaka, and a trained trapper of grasshoppers.

Grasshopper trapping is a living, and a means for locals to survive in a world rapidly changing due to climate crisis. The fear hanging over this film is that the grasshopper harvest may not be enough from one season to a next. But it is more than just fear of the catch, trappers must also risk their health with the traditional, precarious traps involving electricity, rainy season and corrugated metal, meaning electrocution and sometimes blinding of the eyes from the 1000 watt lights they need to attract the hoppers.

Michelle Coomber 'Having studied photojournalism of the traps, we knew our visual style would be governed by the practical considerations of shooting at night as much as by our desired aesthetics”, the director explains. Adding that they chose to shoot on a Red Gemini as they knew it would “cope admirably” with the lack of light in the film’s setting and paired the camera with Bausch & Lomb Super Baltar lenses to “complement the soft, dreamlike, haunting atmosphere we wanted to evoke'.

Featured in the NewYorker

CREDITS

@mich_coomber -Director & Producer.

@xamoros - Director of Photography
@Jimwight.it - Editor