Jolyon Hoff’s egalitarian cinema: Suzie Gibson in Conversation with filmmaker Jolyon Hoff and collaborator Muzafar Ali on The Staging Post (2017) and Watandar, My Countryman (2022).

As a storytelling device cinema has the capacity to provide unique insights into the lives of others. Jolyon Hoff’s The Staging Post (2017) and, more recently, Watandar, My Countryman (2022) succeed in foregrounding the experiences of asylum seekers and immigrants — people who are too often neglected or misunderstood by the popular media and wider society. In both films Afghanistan-born Muzafar Alioperates as the lead protagonist and narrator who mediates our vision of the material, blurring the boundaries between director, story and audience. Both films could be described as egalitarian forms of cinema in that the subject matter is handled in a manner that is culturally aware and politically sensitive. This is particularly important when representing disenfranchised and vulnerable members of society, which often includes refugees and those from non-English speaking backgrounds: giving such people voice is an inherently ethicalact. What further unites The Staging Post and Watandar, My Countryman are their insightful meditations upon the themes of identity and belonging that oscillate around those immigrants who are stateless and isolated. In conversation with filmmaker Jolyon Hoff and his collaborator Muzafar Alimy presentation will consider the politics of cross-cultural filmmaking, the role of voice and perspective in filmmaking,the idea of the ‘colonial gaze’ and, finally, how Hoff’s disarming cinematic style disrupts the conventional hierarchy between director and subject.