By Reuben Lazarus
Act of Kindness is the story of Sven Pannell, a New Zealander returning to Rwanda to find the man that helped him get home safely back in 1999. Sven must search an entire country in search of one man, and to make it harder, he only knows his first name: Johnson.
Sven Pannell, in an exclusive interview talks about the purpose of his journey, and what drives a man like him to do what he does.
What made you go back to Rwanda to search for Johnson? “I felt a debt remained unpaid, and it ate away at me. I remember thinking that I was enjoying the good life and Johnson – wherever he was – probably wasn’t so comfortable. I wanted to try to tell a story that had some impact beyond just me. So I picked up a camera.”
What did your friends and family think of you going back after they heard the stories from the first time you were there? “My family have always let me go on my own journey, come what may. And most of my friends are a lot madder than me when it comes to adventures. But my perception is that Rwanda has made enormous ground since I was there. I’d feel safer wandering the streets there than outside bars on a Friday in London or Sydney or Auckland.”
Along the way, you laid your trust in a lot of people you had never met before. Did you ever consider that putting your faith in these people that you’ve never met could end badly? “Now that you ask me to think about it, I suppose I’ve always put faith in people I haven’t met before. Perhaps by putting faith in people we encourage them to be faithful. Every once in a while, something will go wrong. But the chances of that happening are so much lower than the certain negativity of living a life without trust. The media seems to prey on mistrust and magnify it beyond its rightful place in our lives. It’s a macabre little addiction, institutionalised. I tried to tell the story of kindness to shine a light on the remaining 99% of us who are quite nice people.”
Would you say that there is a much larger purpose to the film than just to tell this single story, like trying to humanise a part of the world that is very far from understood in the West? “I’m pleased that comes across. That’s definitely a layer that I was hoping would form as we told this story. I do think we have structures in place in our societies that de-humanise. They are insidious, dangerous. These structures allow groups of individuals to act (or remain silent on actions) with impunity. But in terms of putting this messaging up on screen, I just shot the story and, frankly, hoped that some of these concepts would emerge.”
Act of Kindness is screening at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, which is on between July 9 – 16, 2017.
