Filmmaker Tshililo waha Muzila on Hiking Through Spain With an Orange Life Jacket for Afrophobia Doc ‘The Little Black Man From the Congo’

The derogatory title of his searing documentary film, “A Little Black Man from Congo” isn’t what South African filmmaker Tshililo waha Muzila came up with by himself.

It’s what he discovered that “they” are called in Spain: The irregular migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants, precariously – and often fatally – trying to reach Europe in anything afloat, desperate in search of a better life. In Spanish, the term is “Negrito Del Congo.”

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His evocative in competition documentary feature with the offensive title, produced by Masanani Productions, populates the lineup of this week’s 8th Joburg Film Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, and opens with the words “A pilgrimage the world refuses to see.”

Muzila, living in Johannesburg now but who lived in Spain for a while, returns to that country for his documentary, where he walks the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage with an orange life jacket around his neck.

Seeking answers, reactions and a better understanding, “A Little Black Man From Congo” dares to wade deeper into the complex issue of African migrants fleeing to Europe, and Europe’s Afrophobia.

But Muzila doesn’t stop there.

Framing a parallel, he also turns the gaze on South Africa, to equally examine the Black-on-Black racism in South Africa, where xenophobia also became very prevalent over the last number of years, with hostility directed at other Black Africans entering South Africa from beyond its borders.

The documentary maker tells Variety that despite the exposure and news coverage over several years, the migrant crisis of thousands of people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea annually, remains something people would rather just not see.

“The documentary is to challenge – to say that there is something happening that the world is refusing to see,” he says.

“And not only there but also back home, because I’m South African and here it is the elephant in the room as well. What is really happening in South Africa with migrants coming here in search of a better life? What’s happening here in South Africa is happening in parallel with what is taking place in Europe, and no matter where, the world is refusing to see that.”

Muzila explains that while originally visiting Spain, he would see groups of Black people. “I started being curious. Where were these people coming from? Because at night we would go out and you’d see them appear, selling all kinds of little things.”

“At that stage, I wasn’t aware of the migrant crisis along the Mediterranean, and then I got educated. Later on, developing this documentary looking at the issue, I didn’t want it to be a voyeuristic project. That’s something I wanted to avoid. I didn’t want it to look like I am looking at this story in an exotic way, like looking from the outside in. I wanted to go in myself,” he explains.

“So I tried to find ways and means of having myself in the documentary, without having me in it. But I’m a runner, so as it progressed, I decided to walk the Camino.”

“I’m a long-distance runner, so I love endurance. So as soon as I heard about the Camino de Santiago, it just clicked for me to bring filmmaking and running together – to say this is something that I can put together as parallel storylines.”

Thus, as Muzila puts it, “linking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to West Africans going to Europe was triggered.”

About the provocative title, Muzila says he wants a reaction from the cinemagoer – for them to wonder why these words, and what they mean.

“It’s what I asked in Spain. Who are these people? And the people you’re with, when they feel you’re within their circle, they open up and they feel comfortable talking about these things.”

“So, I was kind of being treated as not Black like them – the migrants. In South Africa, we’ve got the term of saying ‘Clever Black,’ you know? And they got comfortable enough to tell me that they call those people ‘Negrito Del Congo’. Right away, I then asked: Okay, what does Negrito Del Congo mean? And the moment I heard about it, I thought: This really is provocative.”

“It’s one of those things that people would say within their own circles, but it remains hidden. Yet everybody around knows what you mean when you say ‘Negrito Del Congo.”

Strapping an orange life jacket on to walk a pilgrimage, Muzila says he did so “as a symbol.”

“I thought: What would it trigger with Europeans? Who will be curious to know what’s happening?”

And spoiler alert: Several are.

“Psychologically, it caused a lot of anxiety” to film himself as a Black Man walking cross-country in Spain with an orange life jacket, Muzila says.

“I’ve been making TV productions and films for the past 20 years, but I’ve never been in front of a camera myself.”

“So the anxieties were a mix – not only about wondering how people are going to react, but also me just exposing myself as a filmmaker as part of the story.”

He says he “never thought anybody would shout at me or do any harm to me.”

“I knew mentally that it would either be triggering them to be curious, to want to know more – which is what I wanted – or that people would just flat-out ignore me and maybe just talk about this Negrito Del Congo who had passed their village among themselves, which is what I think mostly happened. Most of the reactions only happened when I got to the end of the pilgrimage.”

His Spanish pilgrimage is juxtaposed with a return in South Africa to Maluma – the rural village where he grew up and that he notes in the film, he promised himself he would never again return to.

“When I passed Grade 12, I left for Johannesburg, and eventually went to Venice to study film and TV. I’ve always despised that place where I grew up because I never saw it as home.”

“I grew up in a culture where, you know, these things of being intimate with your family, like hugging, never used to happen. I said long ago, I’m not coming back. They thought I was joking.”

“It was the first time that my younger sister hugged me, because I’ve been gone for a very long time. But I remember that she came running. And then she hugged me. And I felt: Okay, now I’m back home. Home in a place that I never took as home.”