Documentarian Rendah Haj Is Shining a Light on the African Australian Migrant Experience

Growing up the child of Egyptian Eritrean parents in Melbourne, Australia, Rendah Haj realized early on that most people she encountered had a lot of preconceived notions about the communities she grew up in.

When it comes to the African Australian community, “There are a lot of misconceptions about what that experience is like,” Haj, 24, told The FBomb. Part of the problem, according to Haj, is the extreme whiteness of Australia’s media and entertainment industries. The African migrant experience, she said, “is never depicted genuinely or honestly, or by someone who’s lived through the experience.”

The need for more realistic and powerful narratives about Black Australian life was a big reason why Haj decided to study film at Melbourne’s RMIT University. It was there that she began focusing on how she could create work that centered identity and social justice issues. When it came time to make a documentary of her own, “I just wanted to make something that felt really personal and intimate,” she recalled. That student film was the start of what would eventually become her new short documentary, “Hayat,” which is streaming across the United States as part of the DOC NYC Film Festival November 11-19. The film centers on Rahma, an Eritrean migrant and mother of four, as she raises her four children in Melbourne. As the viewer gets a glimpse inside the family’s daily life, they also see Rahma adapt to her adopted country while also preparing for Ramadan.

The FBomb had the chance to chat with Haj over video chat from her home in Melbourne about her first short documentary and what it is like debuting a documentary in the age of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Why was it important to you to center the immigrant and refugee experience in this film?

Most of the time, if the African migrant experience is defined in any way, it’s as a struggle — and I absolutely hate that. I felt like I went through that growing up because it felt like people were always looking at me negatively, or feeling sorry for me. I’m just like, “that’s not what it is.” Everyone in life goes through stuff.

Your film “Hayat” is actually named after the oldest daughter of the house, but you ended up focusing primarily on Rahma, the children’s mother. How did that come about?

This was a family that I’ve known for just over six years because they were the neighbors of some of my other family members, and it was good to reconnect with them for this project and also obviously get my work done for university.

I originally wanted the story to be focused on Hayat. But as you can probably tell throughout the documentary, it took a while to really break through walls with her. She really just wanted her own space. I think in the end, we found that Rahma, the mother, was at the forefront of the story. She was so comfortable being on camera and talking about her life and sharing things. It was absolutely incredible. But I also wanted to do something that explored my own story as well. I was also raised by a single mom and my family were migrants to Australia as well. So I was just trying to understand as well some of the dynamics families navigate.

Hayat is a teenager and, as you just mentioned, it took her a bit of time to open up on camera. Like a lot of teens, she is very conscious of how the audience will perceive her (and her culture) and says as much in a very memorable scene.

That scene is maybe 30 or 40 seconds — which is very small for a 15-minute film — but everyone picks that point out, because I think they can really see how genuine she is. Even if the viewers are guys or older men and women, everyone just seems to understand what she’s saying. And I think they’re really sometimes surprised at how intelligent she is and the way she comes across.

I think especially that scene itself really tells you a lot about the way she interacts with the family, her role in the family, kind of the adolescent things as well that she goes through. Hayat went to the same high school I used to go to when I was younger, so I understood what she was going through. I’ve been there.

What has it been like seeing this film be received so warmly at film festivals around the world?

The first big film festival we went to was Slamdance in Utah earlier this year. And that was an incredible experience because I got to go and it was my first time in the United States. It was just incredible to see a diverse range of people being able to relate to the film. They were able to tap into this world, and it really did enlighten their perspectives and their perceptions about what the African migrant experience is.

Your film is also coming out at a time when both the Black Lives Matter movement and the refugee crisis are both in the news, both around the world and specifically in Australia. Did those conversations also influence this film?

Black Lives Matter has affected so many of us, just in the last few months, let alone the last few years. With this film I wanted to start somewhere small and tell the story of one family. This is not a film that confronts you right in your face. But my aim was definitely to challenge perceptions of African migrants and refugees. The one thing I really wanted to bring through in the documentary was that this is a Muslim family of faith and how that fact ties in with both our ongoing refugee crises and the way that a lot of refugees and migrants are treated in this country, especially when they’re Muslim.

What do you think the ultimate message of this film is?

In really uncertain times, I feel like people just need to be more compassionate and understanding. Hopefully this film can really challenge a lot of those perceptions, and shed light to what experiences of other people are that we don’t see in the majority of the Western media that we’re surrounded by.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.