Jasmine Valentine chats with Tori & Lokita directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and leading actress Joely Mbundu…
The stories that are the hardest to hear aren’t always the hardest to tell. In their latest film Tori & Lokita, the Dardennes follow two unaccompanied migrant minors in Belgium who are fighting against the odds to settle into a normal life. Examining social injustice, ignorance, and the strength of friendship, there’s an overwhelming sense of emotional power packed into its 88-minute runtime.
Why this story?
Jean-Pierre: Eight years ago, we started working on the story of a family from Cameroon who had come over to Belgium. It was about a mother and two children, and the mother was being deported. Her advice to her children was to go into a centre for unaccompanied minors, make themselves known, and whatever happens, do not get separated. That story never developed at the time. More recently, we read in the press that there was quite a number of unaccompanied migrant minors who actually disappeared without a trace. We could assume that they went underground and into the criminal world. We thought this is unacceptable, and there’s not really much exploration of why this is happening, or where they’re going. Possibly because it’s also not straightforward. Maybe there’s a lack of desire to do so. What happened stayed with us in the story and in the film. The two children are not brothers and sisters, but they stay together.
Joely — what was the process like for you? How did you get cast? Was this something that you really wanted to be a part of?
Joely: It was very weird because I was just walking down the road and a young filmmaker came up to us. She knew one of my friends and was asking him if he wanted to play in her short film. It wasn’t really his thing, it wasn’t his cup of tea. I didn’t really know what her project was but I went up to her and said “Yes, I really want to do it. I want to help.” Then I ended up doing the short film with her and we became friends. She was also the only one who I told that I wanted to be an actress. Then for about three years, I sent emails everywhere, with no response or just no as an answer. And finally, this casting was posted on social media and I just went for it.
Do you all feel a sense of responsibility given the subject matter? Or do you approach it in more of a storytelling sort of way?
Luc: For us, our responsibility is clearly there — talking and locals or to individuals. They are not figures or statistics. This is how migrants are generally portrayed, as a danger to our society who don’t want to work. Basically portrayed very negatively. These are two individuals who just want to live, want to go to school, and want to work. Our responsibility was choosing to put these two young unaccompanied minors at the heart of our story. They are invisible. People don’t see them.
Do you think the fact that you focused on minors changes audience reaction, compared to if adults were the focus?
Luc: It’s true. Children are more vulnerable, so it’s true that there might be more empathy. But really, in everyday life —I don’t know the experience enough about England, but definitely for Italy, France, and Belgium — it seems that even the children are not welcomed and stigmatised as migrants.
Joely, how did you work on getting that fantastic connection with Pablo? It’s so lovely that you’re not siblings, but you’re so close.
Joely: It really just happened between us. It wasn’t always easy because a 12-year-old is a child that always wants to move and play. When you’re working on a movie, sometimes you need space to concentrate on the role, but that innocent thing in him made everything easier to work with. You admire people who don’t worry about things going on in life, these situations. So it was very, very fun to work with him. He took a lot of energy. But he gave us also a lot of energy.
Why is social inequality such a thematic draw to your work?
Jean-Pierre: Our films often centre on people who are in their most vulnerable weakest state, and why? I guess because we love them. This film gives existence to individuals who don’t get that normally. They’re not seen in the same kind of way. It is as if we are telling stories about the ‘Forgotten Ones.’ Because they don’t really have a big voice in society. So we decided to be their voice, or just tell their stories because we admire them. They are beautiful stories, stories that you should know about. We all ignore them. I think knowledge is power, and it’s better in some way to die knowing instead of dying while being ignorant.
How do you manage to tell an entire lifetime of pain and strife in less than a 90-minute runtime?
Jean-Pierre: It’s not an entire lifetime that we tell — it’s a moment. But it’s true that this moment that we choose to tell is revealing in terms of previous lives. The whole film is manufactured around the time of waiting for papers, and then the consequences of not receiving them. It’s true that through that key moment we understand the life they’re living and how hard it is. What a struggle it is to actually get to what we want. To have a normal life. It’s practically impossible for Tori & Lokita. The life that we show on-screen tells the story of two people who would like to have a normal life and haven’t got it.
Many thanks to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and Joely Mbundu for taking the time for this interview.
Jasmine Valentine
