Sweet, Sweet Country: An Interview with Filmmaker Dehanza Rogers

Director Dehanza Rogers’s latest short film, “Sweet, Sweet Country” is the winner of the Audience Award at the 2013 Atlanta Film Festival. The film stars Danielle Deadwyler as the 20-year old refugee Ndizeye, whose struggles to care for herself and the family she left behind in Kenya become even more pressing when they literally show up at her doorstep. The story takes place in Clarkston, Georgia, a real life obscure southern town that became known for the influx of refugees from around the world who were settled there and the soccer team, the Fugees, that emerged from the children of these communities. Gbenga Akinnabge (The Wire, Nurse Jackie) also stars. Rogers’s film emerged from dozens of interviews she conducted in Clarkston, as well as from her family’s experiences as immigrants from Panama. Below’s a short Q&A we had with Rogers, after the trailer: