Director Orlando von Einsiedel has an innate knack--and affinity--for finding and following a small story with a limited number of protagonists and allowing that story to unfold to reveal bigger meanings and issues. But as we all have in one way or another had to adapt during the COVID-19 crisis, the Oscar-winning and Emmy and DGA Award-nominated filmmaker had to take a 180-degree turn from his normal way of working--so that he could shed light on that very pandemic and how everyday people responded to it. He would not be able to focus on a single story. Rather in Convergence: Courage In A Crisis (Netflix), von Einsiedel chronicled nine individual stories spanning eight countries--and had to do so in concert with 10 other co-directors. He described it as the Avengers version of a documentary. And while it was, he admitted, a bit scary to take on the challenge of weaving these narratives together, in the end there was tremendous gratification in being part of a global collaboration of directors--working with them to tell multiple stories that, while distinctly different, shared a compelling bond, reflecting the power of the human spirit, the drive by many to take action to alleviate the crisis and even change society for the better.
In the process von Einsiedel learned a great deal about creative collaboration and documentary filmmaking approaches and styles from different countries. And by working with local teams who are from the communities they are covering, a deeper understanding of the film’s protagonists and their lives was realized. The experience of making this film has substantively changed von Einsiedel’s perspective on documentary filmmaking--and he would like to see it have the same impact on other documentarians.
“I’m hoping this is going to change the way documentaries are made going forward,” he shared. “Prior to this pandemic, if we were to do a shoot on the other side of the world, standard practice would be to work with local producers but you would bring a lot of your crew with you. I don’t think that will happen anymore for me.”
Convergence, he explained, gave him a deeper understanding of local talent around the world such as the documentary communities in India and Peru. He now plans to continue seeking collaborative partnerships, tapping into the “real strength” of filmmakers telling stories in the communities they’re from. “The world is very divided,” related von Einsiedel. “It takes something like a pandemic to show how connected we all are, how the world is so small and we’re all in it together. If we are to fight global challenges like a pandemic--and climate change--we need to work together.”
And paralleling that, filmmakers need to work together--as they did in Convergence--to best tackle global issues.
Convergence follows everyday people around the world as they rise to the challenges of the COVID crisis in extraordinary ways. There’s, for instance, a Syrian refugee fighting the U.K. government to include hospital cleaners/sanitation workers in the national bereavement pay program. We are also introduced to a doctor committed to serving Miami’s homeless community. So while this generation-defining crisis begins to unmask deep-rooted flaws and inequities worldwide, Convergence filmmakers take us on diverse journeys that tell a more unified narrative about our common humanity and how, by coming together, great change can emerge from chaos.
Director von Einsiedel worked with co-directors Hassan Akkad in the U.K., Lali Houghton in Peru, Amber Fares in the U.S., Guillermo Galdos in Peru, Juhi Sharma in India, Lieven Corthouts in Belgium, Mauricio Montiero Filho in Brazil, Mohammad Reza Eyni in Iran, Sara Khaki in Iran, and Wenhua Lin in China.
As an example of the value of diverse local voices, consider Akkad who left Syria for a better life in the U.K. A teacher turned filmmaker, first documenting the peaceful protests in Syria which started in 2011, Akkad also chronicled his journey across the Aegean Sea into Europe, shedding light on what refugees endure. He wound up making content for a number of refugee organizations, and was among a group of filmmakers who made a three-part series for the BBC and PBS about the refugee crisis. When the pandemic hit, Akkad saw the emergence of another crisis. He sought a productive way out of his one-bedroom apartment during lockdown, taking a job as a cleaner to disinfect hospitals. He saw that the cleaning crews largely consisted of migrants, and began to film their stories and post them online. The posts were retweeted, eliciting overtures from production companies interested in the stories. Von Einsiedel reached out to Akkad and their collaboration began. And when the U.K. government excluded hospital cleaners and porters, minimum wage-earning migrants who are on the high-risk COVID frontline, from its bereavement compensation program, Akkad became an advocate for their inclusion, using film as a means to raise awareness of their plight. He became a prime example of what Von Einsiedel referenced as a theme in Convergence--people taking action to bring about positive change, filling the breach of a government that failed them.
A daunting editing challenge
Beyond the directors in and from different parts of the world, von Einsiedel gave much credit to editor Karen Sim and co-editor Raphael Pereira. Von Einsiedel observed, “It was like making 10 different features at the same time, with so many different storylines playing out. In the beginning at least it was difficult to know where each story was going, how it would end.”
The directors generated some 500 hours of material, an enormous volume to go through, log and organize. Sim and Pereira were “incredible,” said von Einsiedel, culling down the material, organizing it and finding thematic threads. What emerged, continued the director, was the common ground shared by the stories, a sense of shared humanity. Flaws in society were exposed by COVID and then people tried to help such as Dr. Armen Henderson who brought relief to Miami’s largely Black homeless population--another example of addressing the chaos and affecting positive change. Co-director Fares told the physician’s story, along the way capturing how he was racially profiled and detained outside his own home by a white, maskless police officer.
Dr. Henderson is another example, said von Einsiedel, of a person willing to make personal sacrifices for a greater good. We saw governments failing and civil society, embodied in the likes of Henderson and Akkad, rallying to plug the holes.
Convergence adds to a von Einsiedel filmography which includes the Oscar-winning short documentary The White Helmets, which follows the lives of a group of heroic Syrian civilian rescue workers in 2016. That film was released as a Netflix Original and additionally earned two Emmy nominations, including for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.
Von Einsiedel’s debut feature documentary, Virunga, introduced us to a group of courageous park rangers risking their lives to build a better future in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Virunga earned nominations for a Best Feature Documentary Oscar and BAFTA Award in 2015 as well as a DGA Award nod for von Einsiedel. The film was additionally recognized for helping to protect the Virunga National Park and its mountain gorillas, winning a Peabody, a Television Academy Honor and the 2015 Doc Impact Award.