Darkness Over Paradise is a documentary three years in the making, involving a collaboration between the Association of Sierra Leonean Journalists in Exile (ASALJIE) and Information & Cultural Exchange (ICE), through ICE’s Emerging Communities program and SWITCH Multimedia and Digital Arts Access Centre.
In 2003, after running a series of ‘Introduction to Filmmaking’ workshops for emerging communities, ICE discovered that some of the participants were far from being new comers to filmmaking. Two participants were in fact experienced journalists from Sierra Leone. These initial participants, and other members of ASALJIE who now reside in Western Sydney, approached workshop organisers with a larger vision. Between them, the Sydney members of ASALJIE had a bank of analogue video footage and a wealth of stories and first-hand experiences from the frontline of the civil war in their country. Much of this video footage had never been screened before. These journalists held a desire to tell the story of what happened to their country, a desire shared by much of the Sierra Leonean community in Australia (who now number in the thousands), and a need to find audiences in Australia and abroad receptive to their message.
The situation for journalists in Sierra Leone during the war was extremely precarious. Many were persecuted and fled to neighbouring Guinea for reporting on the atrocities committed in the name of both government and rebel forces. A large group of these exiled journalists were repatriated to Australia through the humanitarian program.
With the support of a range of government and non-government partners, including the Australia Council for the Arts, the NSW Film and Television Office, the Mercy Foundation, Parramatta City Council and Arts NSW, ICE worked with these journalists and other members of the Sierra Leonean community in Sydney to digitise the footage and develop the Darkness Over Paradise documentary, as well as providing training in new media for these already highly experienced journalists, supporting them to apply their skills in the Australian media context.
As the documentary neared completion, the journalists and other members of the local Sierra Leonean community, worked with ICE in workshops held at SWITCH Multimedia and Digital Arts Access Centre to develop a Darkness Over Paradise Website to promote the film and document its journey.