Chapter 1 - Filmmaker Commentary
Rencontrer opens with a brief look at early morning in West Philadelphia - students and workers boarding the Trolley, an African food store opening for the day, and the crossing guard halting traffic for a middle school student. Then we see Hadja engaged in her routine. She is hanging her clothes she hand washed earlier, tending to her garden, and praying - all with ambient sound, intended to visually exude that sense of loneliness - pure silence. Tiguida come arrives for a visit, and sure enough, we find that Hadja longs for Fridays to attend a mosque to catch up with her friends. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to film inside the mosque - I really wanted the image of her praying alongside her friends then following her out from the mosque to the front porch where they socialize before returning home - That is where she had met Tiguida that day.

Typically, the image of an African immigrant is that of a young 'working-age' person who arrives at distant shores having gone through all kinds of hurdles and life-threatening danger seeking refuge from conflict. That image is mostly true for African refugees. Immigrants, on the other hand, arrive here in a variety of ways - such as over-staying student, business and travel visas, and also through family reunification programs. In effect, the situations that forces one to flee the land of their ancestors affect the young and old alike and life for the older immigrants is especially difficult. Whereas old age brought with it a status of respect and special place in African societies, life in a strange culture is exactly the opposite, strangely unfamiliar. Most older immigrants are at home for a majority of their daily lives. Most likely, the scenario is that the extended family they are staying with have jobs or go to school and they are unfortunately left to their own devices for a majority of the day; an unimaginable existence in communal African cultures.