Ikland

Ikland (2012)

A film about the worst people in the world.

The Ik were described as sadists who starved their own children and crapped in front of each others' homes for fun. They were reviled as the worst and most depraved beings on Earth, and it was recommended that their culture be destroyed for its own good. No one has dared to film them in the 40 years since they were first studied. Ikland recounts a quest to re-connect with a lost corner of humanity. For director Cevin Soling, they represented the last outpost of imagination in a world devoid of myth. He risked his life, and the lives of his crew, by traveling through war-ravaged northern Uganda to reach them. Their experience was alien and surreal in ways only Jonathan Swift might have imagined.

Date of release
2012-06-15
Runtime
1h 36m
Genres
Documentary
Director
David Hilbert, Cevin D. Soling

Interesting facts

Ikland is a 2011 documentary film about a journey through the mountains of northeastern Uganda, along the Kenyan border, toward an encounter with the Ik. Ikland was produced by Cevin Soling, and directed by Soling and Hilbert David.

Production

Cevin Soling was first introduced to the Ik during the seventh grade, when his teacher assigned his class to read a Lewis Thomas essay entitled "The Iks." The class responded with amusement, instead of the horror their teacher anticipated. Students found the stories of Ik barbarism absurd and comical. Soling never forgot the assignment, and saved the photocopied essay into adulthood.

Soling announced that he wanted to film in Uganda during the summer of 2004. Fanny Walker joined the crew as a drama instructor. Production manager Nichole Smaglick approached a National Geographic production in southern Uganda, but could only recruit cinematographer David Pluth, because no one else would risk travel in the north.

Pluth sustained injuries from an elephant attack in late 2004, which delayed production for several months. Soling flew with Walker from New York to Entebbe in February 2005. There they met Pluth, Smaglick, and assistant director Lawrence Owongo. While traveling north, the team was arrested by the Uganda People's Defence Force, who released them only after destroying much of their footage.

The Ik were terrified that the crew might be agents of the Lord's Resistance Army, and stayed away until they felt sure of their safety. According to Soling, the tribe was unaware of The Mountain People text, but did know of a man called Turnbull who had spread "malicious lies" about them. It took time for the villagers to grow comfortable with the crew, but interviews thereafter were loose and conversational.

Soling approached Hilbert David during the spring of 2009, entrusting him with some 67 hours of original footage. An additional 3 hours shot by Turnbull during the 1960s was provided by the Smithsonian Institution. Hilbert was given complete artistic freedom during post-production, while he assembled the film without a script.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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