Freedom's Just Another Word

Allison Berg (Photo By John Anderson)

Pona knows she will live out her days at Kukuo, a "witches' home" in rural northern Ghana, where women accused of witchcraft are sent.

Pona is one of several women featured in Witches in Exile, Allison Berg's SXSW Film 04 Special Jury Award-winning documentary about the Kukuo Witches Camp. These women are scapegoats for the social problems in a politically turbulent and poor country stumbling toward modernity and democratic self-rule; one says, "When there is food in the house there is peace in the home." Another states that once women are through bearing children, "you have no use to the men," so they accuse you of witchcraft and are rid of you.

Yet they resist the efforts of reformers to close the camps and return them to their villages – not necessarily because they fear for their lives (though many, rightly, do), but because for some the camp is a kind of sanctuary, a community of women living free from interference.

With a camera crew and a Dagomba interpreter, Berg gained intimate access to both the community of Kukuo and the mainstream of Ghanan life. She spoke about making the film after its screening on Wednesday at the Paramount.

Austin Chronicle: Do you think the camps should be closed?

Allison Berg: I wish I could say yes, but I think that there needs to be education – especially in the north, where the witch camps are. Because it really is economic strife, the family breaking down, [that causes] these tragedies. I hope that one day they can close them down.

AC: Were people willing to talk to you about witchcraft?

AB: It depends. The people on the street were a little thrown. A lot of people, even before I went, said that knowledge, that information, is power. "Why should I give this to you?" But people in Ghana talk about [witchcraft] all the time, so it really just depends on whom you're talking to, whether they feel they can trust you, why you want to know.

AC: Tell me about shooting the scene in Pona's village with her son, when they are reunited.

AB: Well, that was interesting, because I didn't want her to come. We were going by ourselves to get the real story from his point of view. She just insisted on coming with us, so of course we said yes, and it ended up being the climactic scene in the film. ... They're trying to mend their family relations, and it's obvious that these witchcraft accusations don't just hurt the woman. It's horrible and humiliating and makes the entire family weaker.

AC: What do you think the future holds for [one accused woman's] granddaughter, being raised in the camp without an education?

AB: [She] asked if she could come home with me to New York, and that was torture for me. I live in a studio apartment in New York City, and I don't know how many times I've gotten an eviction notice since this film began. I'm broke. I know I look like an American coming in with this equipment. People like [the granddaughter], that breaks my heart, because they have nothing to do with the accusations, but they're affected by it as well. One thing I should say, on the other hand, is that it's a traditional thing in Ghana that you go and take care of your grandparents. But usually grandparents are in a place where there is school. Education is very important in Ghana. For her to miss that opportunity is awful.

Witches in Exile screens at the Paramount, March 20, 11:30am.