Survivor-Centred Co-Direction: Interview with Filmmaker Marc Ellison

This transcript is adapted from an interview between SCVN researcher Ghada and filmmaker Marc Ellison, on November 20, 2026. Marc has directed two documentary short films for the Rwanda Research Cluster titled “Why We Dance” (trailer) and a “A Compassionate Heart” (trailer). In the interview, Ghada and Marc discuss the collaborative filming techniques that went into each production as Marc worked with Rwandan genocide survivors Jerome Irankunda (“Why We Dance”) and Madeleine Mukarwego (“A Compassionate Heart”). Marc and Ghada discuss his focus on co-direction with the survivors, the ethical considerations of filming recounting of traumatic experiences, and the role of film in preserving collective memory.

Marc and Jerome filming part of “Why We Dance” in a field with cows.

Photos have been generously provided by Marc.

Ghada: Thank you so much for being with us today, Marc. To get us going, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your professional background? I’m curious how you became a filmmaker and how you connected with the SCVN project?

Marc: It’s a very roundabout path coming to produce these documentaries. Before I suffered what I called my pre-midlife crisis, I was a computer programmer for the better part of a decade. It’s an inauspicious sort of beginnings. My partner at the time – she’s part of the project, Dr. Erin Jessee – she was doing her field research out in Rwanda. And she basically said, “do you want to quit your job and come to Rwanda with me?”

That was really the beginning of it. While Erin was doing her field work, I was volunteering at a local NGO, working with survivors of the genocide. The NGO was aimed at putting orphans of the genocide through university. We lived in the country for about a year and came to love the country and the people, and we were fortunate enough to hear some stories of what some of these – I call them kids, I guess, because I’m old – some of these awful things that these kids have gone through.

And I’d been doing some writing at the time; I’d always been a keen creative writer and keen photographer. And I thought, “I don’t want to be stuck in a cubicle for the rest of my life.”

I thought, “you know what, given the photography and the love of writing, let’s try my hand at journalism.” I was fortunate enough to get into the journalism program at Carlton University in Ottawa. And then, I was basically a freelance photojournalist for a number of years, primarily working across Africa.

And not just video. I can’t draw, but I’ve produced a number of graphic novels. I did one quite recently called House Without Windows, [2021, coauthored with Didier Kassaï] where I collaborated with local artists. We travelled around the country, looking at how the conflict there was impacting children. And we had this great marriage of Kassaï’s artwork and my photography.

But then I’ve always come full circle. My current job right now is basically a data analyst with BBC Monitoring. It’s a bit more sedentary but still looking at quite depressing things like jihadist activity in Mali or what have you.

I still do the photography and the filmmaking whenever I can. And then, as you say, I was fortunate enough to get involved with this project.

Left: Jerome sitting in front of church. Middle: Madeleine on peer. Right: Marc filming church.

Ghada: Thank you for sharing. It’s always inspiring to see how people end up in different places in different ways. I’m curious to know how did you navigate the balance between documenting the survivors’ experiences and protecting their dignity and their privacy? And along those lines, how did you create a space that was both respectful and emotionally safe for the survivors to share their stories while there is a camera recording?

Marc: It’s tricky. I’ve dealt with many video projects in the past, even dealing with female former child soldiers in Uganda or victims of FGM [female genital mutilation] in Tanzania.

It’s tricky to get a balance of getting the person’s trust, not sensationalizing the story, and respecting their rights to anonymity, if that’s what they want.

I’ve been fortunate enough to know both Jerome and Madeleine, the focus of both stories. I’ve known them for several years. As in the case of Jerome, a colleague, I’ve worked with him for a number of years. And Madeleine, she’s almost a mother figure for me in many ways. And whenever we’re out there, she makes sure that she gives me lots of food. She’s a lovely lady. And I think that comes through in the documentary.

Arguably, it was maybe a disadvantage having known them for a few years. I had to take a step back and be a bit more objective and remove myself a little bit from the fact that I do know these people. On the flip side, there was an advantage because obviously I did know them. They, I think, trusted me. I’ve worked with them on and off over the years, and they’ve seen the work that I’ve done with Erin Jessee as well. I think there was a certain amount of trust there. I think a lot of the groundwork had already been laid.

But, I made it clear from the start that obviously we wanted to empower them in the storytelling, and both Jerome and Madeleine were really involved. When we talk about myself directing them, the film or both films, I would argue that in many ways, it was a co-direction. They were very clear that they wanted to be included in the story.

I think there was a mutual trust and mutual respect there in telling their story. And I think they know that I would never try and make them uncomfortable. I’d always try and put them at ease. Not just for these projects, but if there’s nothing that they want to do again, or if they do get a bit sort of upset or a bit emotional, we always make it clear from the start that we can stop. 

They don’t have to answer that question at all, or we can come back to it later. It’s just about having a certain degree of empathy. Having had that experience over the last 10 or 15 years of dealing with people who have been traumatized by different conflicts or events that, you do learn. It becomes a gut instinct how to navigate these things.

Ghada: I feel sometimes it’s a skill to be nurtured. And then with the right mentality and enough experiences, we can nurture that skill of empathy, which is such a crucial skill to have in life.

Marc: Yeah, absolutely. And I should say it was an eye opener for myself as well. Both with Jeremy and Madeleine, despite having known them for many years, there were elements of their story that they shared with me for the first time on camera.

For example, there’s a bit of Madeleine’s story where we’re interviewing in the church. You see that at the beginning of her documentary, and she describes hiding underneath the bodies for a couple of hours. She’d never shared that with me before. I think that came out partly because she felt empowered; she wants people to know the horrible things that happened to her. But also, I think she felt she was in a safe environment.

I think often the fact that we’re doing it in a sort of guerrilla style, quite low key, I think that sort of makes them feel less nervous as well.

Ground level shot of Madeleine

Ghada: Related to that, I’m curious about some ethical considerations that maybe guided your choices in visualizing and creating two documentaries about trauma and memory. Did you feel that you have a bigger responsibility as a filmmaker in comparison to other films that we might arguably say are fiction?

Marc: Because I know Jerome and Madeleine, I wanted to respect their rights and anonymity if that’s what they decided to do. I didn’t want to force them to go into great detail about what they went through.

It’s funny, actually. Jerome’s documentary was shown for the first time – was it in the Netherlands? Literally just a month or so ago, and the audience members were saying to the members of the team that were there, “Oh, where’s the conflict?”

You’re expecting like an acted reenactment of what Jerome or Madeleine went through. And it was very much Jerome and Madeleine’s decision to take us to the places where some of these terrible things happened.

I mentioned Madeleine’s church and Madeleine’s story too, where there’s one moment where she’s thrown down a ravine by a Hutu neighbor. And those are things that she easily could have just told us about. I wouldn’t have forced her to take us to those locations and recount these things that happened. And in terms of ethics too, there’s an interesting moment at the end of Madeleine’s story where you see her interacting with a perpetrator of genocide, so the man who basically killed her brother. So obviously there’s ethics involved with that.

With the man, Joel, the perpetrator, we made it very clear; we asked a number of times about getting his consent and asked him, “Are you aware there potentially could be backlash?” Even though, in the country, many perpetrators are out of prison and do live back in their original communities.

But we made sure to get signed consent and then, when Erin was back there quite recently showing him the finished film, just getting informed consent that he’s happy with [his] portrayal.

So, respecting not only survivors, but also the perpetrators, which, in itself is maybe controversial.

Marc filming conversation between Madeleine and Joel, a man responsible for her brother’s death.

Ghada: Speaking about consent, with the case of Madeleine, you had already shot the film, and we already had drafts of the films. And then Madeleine had her reasons to ask to be anonymous. She didn’t want to have her face shown, and that was already after the process was done. As a filmmaker, how did you approach that?

Marc: I should say, it sounds like now she’s happy for it to be shown. That’s my understanding.

But yeah, at the end of the day, if given the sensitivity of the topic and again, the fact that I’ve known her for so long and I really love, admire, and respect Madeleine. She’s an amazing person. Even if I wasn’t that close with Madeleine, it’s still the decision that you ultimately have to respect. There’s arguably ways in which we could have tried to re-edit it. It would have been quite a challenge just because she’s so in it; she’s in most scenes and obviously interacting with Joëlle, the artist.

Ultimately, had she wanted to remain anonymous in the film, there’s ways in which we could have tried to have made it work, be it with blurring, disguising the voice, removing any identifying information in the transcript as well. So, had we had to go down that route, of course, we would have respected her wishes.

Ghada: I’d like to zoom out a little bit and talk about films in general. How do you see films playing a role in preserving collective memory and understanding history? What is the main function for documentaries like these?

Marc: I think it’s primarily about informing, engaging, making people realize that things that are happening in a faraway place, even years ago, that they do matter. There are ripple effects of everything that’s happening around the world, now and back in 1994. And I think, the world’s only getting smaller.

It’s important that documentaries, for example, that they inform, they educate, and they engage.

And they leave a historical record, too. Madeleine’s a bit older than Jerome. Madeleine’s not going to be around forever. And this is probably the first time that her story has been properly documented. I think she’s told it to the community a number of times.

Every year in Rwanda to commemorate the genocide, you have an event called Kwibuka [“to remember” in Kinyarwanda], which basically commemorates the genocide. And so most years, survivors will recount their story. Of course, people in the community would have probably heard her story, maybe not all of it, but certainly have a rough idea of what she’s gone through. 

But in terms of a more global international audience, documentary in general is a great way to get down for eternity somebody’s story. I would say that that’s the primary benefit I see: education and engagement.

Ghada: Both documentaries start as the initiative to show the survivor and the artist’s collaboration in the process of developing a graphic novel on the SCVN project. I like to think of this as having your first visualization of the story by the graphic artist. Then you are adding other layers of visualization as a filmmaker. Did the visuals or content of the graphic novels influence the development of the films?

Marc: I think it’s probably the other way around. I think because both artists, Michel and Joëlle, did visit Rwanda, but I don’t think they got to visit some of the key locations in Madeleine’s story or Jerome’s story. They’ve actually used a lot of the B-roll and the footage I shot as sort of visual references.

I think, for me, one of the most incredible parts, certainly of the filming of Jerome’s story, is that development of the relationship between Michel, the artist, and Jerome. And I think that comes across in the film. Obviously, you just see a small part of it. I took hours and hours of footage, but it was really quite touching to see almost this father-son bond develop over the three or four days in Belgium.

But in terms of did the graphic novel inform the video, did the video perform the graphic novel, as I said, I think in this instance Michel and Joëlle drew a lot from the footage that we then shot in Rwanda, after the filming in Belgium.

Marc filming Jerome walking from behind.

Ghada: Nice. I didn’t see this answer coming and I love it! I’m also curious about how much was planned and rehearsed versus how much was just improvised?

Marc: I’ll talk about kits to start with. In a perfect world, there probably would have been two or three crew members. Obviously, that’s not always possible. I mean, and to be frank, just because of money. That’s not just for this project; that’s for countless freelance projects I’ve done. Often funding for these types of projects is limited. And so you get used to just doing the best you can on a budget.

I’m fortunately quite used to having to do everything myself. I do the filming; I do the editing; I do the production, the directing, the writing of the script. I sort of joke that, you know, I used to have hair, but that’s sort of what happened. Because it can be intense, because you are doing everything.

Ghada: Yeah, filmmakers know what you’re talking about. And unfortunately, sometimes people who are not familiar with the process of making films tend to underestimate the need.

Marc: Yeah, and even just setting up, people think that when they just see like a one-on-one interview, they think, “Oh, okay, you just get the camera set up and away you go.”

Often you’re moving around multiple tripods, just to get the right framing, get the right lighting, then you’re setting up the lighting, and then you realize, oh, there might be background noise. So maybe you then need to move. It can take at least an hour, half an hour to an hour just to set up for a standard so-called “talking head” interview. 

But yeah, because it was just me, it was a case of taking what I can carry. And particularly, because again, bear in mind that, a lot of the filming that we did in Rwanda, you’re out in the boonies basically in quite remote rural areas, so literally it’s whatever you can fit on a backpack. I had a Sony A9 camera and multiple lenses. A prime 35-millimeter, 50-millimeter, and then a 400-millimeter actually, which came in very handy as well. I had a couple of tripods, too. 

And smartphones are so good nowadays. The video is so good on them that I basically just used my iPhone as a second camera. Primarily just for the wide angle and then using the good camera for the close-ups of Jerome and Madeleine. Because at the end of the day, it was most important to get the close-ups of them that, worst comes to worst, if my iPhone crapped out, you can always get set up shots afterwards of the wide shots. As a backup, I just had a Zoom audio recorder, but I try to keep it out of shot when possible. But that was just a backup for the audio, just in case there were any issues. Then I had a couple of Sennheiser wireless mics. And that’s literally about it.

I did also have a reflector for the light source as well because obviously when you’re filming somebody who’s dark-skinned, you don’t want to overexpose or underexpose. So we would have to use the lights and the reflector to try and expose Jerome or Madeleine a bit better.

And then just a laptop with Final Cut on it. That, in many ways, is the hardest bit after you’ve been filming for say 10, 12 hours a day, and you’re really tired. I always back it up on at least two external hard drives. Because again, it’s never thankfully happened to me, but we hear stories.

Jerome and Marc filming in a local field with cows.

Ghada: So how much was improvised versus how much was rehearsed and planned?

Marc: We would tend to take it day by day in terms of, I guess, people’s energy levels and the weather because we were actually very lucky where we did a lot of the filming in Belgium just because, even though it was November, the weather was glorious. So we tried to keep it fairly organic.

And again, it was largely survivor-driven in the sense that I had some sort of preconceived ideas of types of shots and sequences I wanted to get, but every day, I tried to keep a bit of wiggle room for what we wanted to do and when we wanted to do it. Even at the end of a day’s filming too, we’d often had an informal debrief over dinner and say, “Okay, well, you know, what went well, what didn’t go well?”

Sometimes you have to roll with the punches, too, because we obviously really wanted to film inside the church with Jerome, to show where he was sleeping before the interim army came and attacked. But unfortunately, we couldn’t get permission.

There’s again a brief moment where you see Jerome near the river on the border of Burundi, and that’s where he fled to Burundi with his uncle. We were there for about 10 minutes and just getting some filming. And then some border police from around the side came over and asked what we were doing. And even though we had all the paperwork, they said, “No, sorry, you can’t film here.” Even though you have the paperwork, you just learn you’re not going to argue. So, we had to pack up, unfortunately.

As a filmmaker, you just have to be fairly easy going and often just brainstorm ideas on the spot.

I should say that in many ways both documentaries were co-directed by Jerome and Madeleine. They had some really good ideas and things that I wouldn’t have thought of. There’s a moment where, near the start of Jerome’s documentary, we’re filming him walking through the sort of wheat fields where his home used to be.

And he says, “Oh, you know, when I’m here, I’ll often just come here and sit and think about how our family used to be on this hill.” And he’s like, “Oh, Marc, why don’t why don’t we just get a shot of me sitting in the wheat field?”

So there’s this beautiful moment where you see Jerome sat amongst the wheat.

There were moments like that with Madeleine as well; they were both really invested in telling the story and even though I’m credited as the director, they were very much a part of the storytelling and how they wanted it to be.

Ghada: You took us to my next question where I wanted to ask you about the collaborative nature of doing these documentaries. Did you have to at some point revise your approach based on feedback from any of the project team or artists?

Marc: Oh, that’s a good question. I can’t think of any specific examples. We navigated that quite well. 

I guess I’m thinking specifically of when we were all physically together for the filming in Belgium. I think a big part of that was just navigated by… every evening, all of us, the project leads, Jerome, Madeleine, myself, we’d all have dinner in the evenings, and we’d all be talking about the project. And, I think, informally talking about what we thought went well, or maybe things that people maybe didn’t like. Not that there were any sort of major disagreements! It was fairly easy going.

The only thing I can think of where there’s, maybe not disagreement, but debate was when […] one of the first cuts of Madeleine’s documentary had been put together. And I think there was some concern. There’s a moment where, because again, I wanted to get Joëlle and Madeleine out of the hotel and into a different space and kind of just engaging as human beings. There’s a moment where they’re on a swing set. And it’s quite a sweet moment because Madeleine had never been on a swing set in her life. And so it was kind of like a giddy schoolgirl.

It was quite funny in many ways. But I just raised that just because when some colleagues on the team first saw that cut, there was concern. I think it was coming from a good place. There was concern that this could maybe show Madeleine to be childlike or that people could have certain preconceived notions of what people from the African continent are like. There are negative connotations and perceptions, unfortunately. I think they were afraid that that could reinforce those preconceptions. But yeah, and again, it was a collegial discussion that we had via e-mail with members of the team, and obviously we did ask Madeleine if she was okay with the footage, but I certainly pushed to keep it in just because it was a spontaneous moment in the documentary that wasn’t really that scripted.

And it’s just a moment of levity and shows that despite everything that she’s been through, she’s still one of the most cheerful, well-adjusted people I know. I was keen to keep it in, but we did go back to Madeleine, just to say, “are you okay with it?” And she was fine.

Marc filming Madeleine in the church

Ghada: How did you approach the story-building process through the editing? Were there moments you had to give up and you didn’t want to? 

Marc:  I think initially both films were only supposed to be 10 minutes. And I think Jerome’s ended up being, goodness, I think 13, maybe, maybe a bit more? And Madeleine’s is way longer. This was a luxury to have, because often a lot of the work that I’ve done, for example, for the BBC, you’ve got 10 minutes, and it has to be 10 minutes. And so you do have to make those hard editorial judgments.

I went to Charlotte Schallié, the leader of the project, and said, “do you mind if I do more?” And she said, “fill your boots!” If I had to rigidly stick to 10 minutes, then yes, there would have had to have been some hard decisions to have been made. 

But in terms of putting the film together, I was very keen not to have too much narration. In Madeleine’s story, she doesn’t speak English, so we could have had a narrator give some of the context of the genocide, but I always like, when editing, to try and keep the person’s voice in as much as possible to keep you in the story. So that’s why there’s no real narration. You’re just hearing the voice of Jerome or Madeleine. There’s minimal text on the screen. There’s just a little bit of context at the beginning of both.

Ghada:  Beautiful, beautiful. To sum up our talk about all these technical aspects of the process, what would be your main advice to filmmakers who’d like to explore trauma-informed storytelling such as human rights, mass atrocity, and other social themes, especially through documentaries? What would be some advice that you would feel it’s important to share with them?

Marc:  Oh, goodness me. People have literally written books on this!

It seems obvious – but I’ve seen journalists not do this – is just to listen, not only to what people are saying during the interviews, but what are they comfortable with, what are they not comfortable with. It’s important to remember, this isn’t about you as the journalist. This is about them, about what they want.

Yes, in a perfect world, you’d want them to relay every detail of what happened, but if they’re not comfortable, you can’t push them. I think it’s really important. In terms of mental health, it’s really important to stress that if they don’t want to answer the question, they don’t have to. If they want to stop, they can. When I was working on different projects across Africa, it was important to make sure that you’ve got a counsellor on hand if somebody does get upset and they want to sit with a counsellor and have a chat.

It’s important for you as the filmmaker to have resources that you can rely on in terms of unpacking things that you’ve heard. It’s quite sad in a way, but when you do this type of work for many, many years, you do become a bit detached. Well, I always liken it to a mental scab in the sense that when you’ve heard so many awful things, after a while you do become a bit detached. But every now and then you do hear a story that picks off that scab. So it’s really important to take mental health seriously when you’re dealing with this kind of thing.

Ghada: Yeah, I did want to ask you, how did you manage also the emotional weight yourself as the person who also is listening to these stories nonstop, dealing with the material, having to think about it and having to visualize it and even be there in the place of the event?

Marc: It’s a curse and a blessing when you’re a one-man band doing everything, but often in the moment of the interview, you’re trying to juggle so much that yes, of course you were listening and paying attention for follow-up questions, but you’re also so focused on adjusting the camera angles. “Is the lighting okay? Is the sound coming through okay?”

And very famous photojournalist like Lynsey Addario or James Nachtwey have said that having that camera in front of your face when you’re taking a photo is almost a barrier that allows you to sort of distance yourself a bit. It’s only afterwards when you’re going through the rushes or when you’re looking at your photos of the video. For example, with Madeleine’s story, I was aware of what she was saying, but it’s only when I was watching back, there’s a moment in the church where she mimics the sound of the cries of the children dying in the church.

Of course, I would have clocked it in the interview, but as I said, you’re so busy keeping an eye on everything. It was only when I was sat literally at this desk, doing the editing, I was like, “Oh my God, it’s chilling.”

If you want to do this kind of work, you do have to just compartmentalize it in the moment and almost have that sort of healthy detachment. You need to watch out for any potential red flags for secondary trauma or what have you.

Right & Left: Marc taking shots of Madeleine.

Ghada: Those two documentaries, like other SCVN documentaries, will be used in genocide and human rights education, so they will be shown at travelling exhibits, in the classroom, even online for the general public. What kind of response do you hope for from the diversity of audiences?

Marc: Yeah, that’s a good question. We’ve talked about the fact that the primary role of documentaries is engage, inform, and educate.

But I think as much as we’ve just talked about the doom and gloom of trauma, I think ultimately both of the documentaries are quite uplifting. They have quite positive  endings. And that’s why Jerome’s story is called “Why We Dance:” the importance of reconciliation of the battle to move on.

And the strength of character that Jerome and Madeleine have that they’re not victims; they are survivors. They’re both incredible people. Jerome is amazingly successful. He’s an instructor at a really good university in Kigali. Madeleine’s a high-up community leader, very well respected.

That’s just to try and get people beyond that notion of victimhood, that victims don’t need to be powerless and can be really involved and active in how they not only present their narratives but also showing the horrible things that they’ve been through, that there is a way forward.

I mean, I don’t think it’s been easy for either of them, but ultimately, I want people to take away a sort of message of the positivity of hope. And I think that comes across, and I think obviously people watching it won’t probably ever get to meet Jerome or Madeleine, but I think they do give a sense of what they really are like. They’re not the sorts of people to act up to the camera. They’re very, very down to earth.

I guess the hope is for people to relate to them as human beings and not as victims.

Ghada: Thank you so, so much for your time first and also for being very generous and sharing all your input and experiences and advice and beautiful insights. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Marc:  The pleasure was mine.