The Filmmakers

FLIP FLOTSAM was produced, filmed and written by: Etienne Oliff & Lucy Bateman

Etienne, born and schooled in Natal, South Africa, graduated with a BSc in Environmental Science from Middlebury College in the USA, thereafter moving to East Africa to pursue a post-graduate degree in Wildlife Biology. It was whilst doing this that he became captivated by natural history filmmaking and began to work as assistant for established wildlife filmmakers Mark Deeble, Victoria Stone and Alan Root.

Lucy, born and schooled in the UK, graduated with a MSC in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh and a Post-graduate Certificate in Education. She then began work as a teacher in a small school in northern Kenya where her history with both anthropology and photography soon enticed her into film.

It was amongst the islands of the Lamu Archipelago of northern Kenya that Etienne and Lucy met, fell in love, and before long conceived of the idea for their first solo film ‘Flip Flotsam’. Unable to get the idea commissioned by incredulous broadcasters, but determined to make the film anyway, they built themselves a make-shift solar-powered camp on the remote island of Kiwaiyu in the Kiunga Marine National Reserve and set about avidly following and filming Flip-Flops. In the factories, in the alleyways, in the gutters, underwater, where-ever flip-flops went… but on the whole living amongst the islanders of the archipelago whose creativity and resourcefulness are so central to the film.

Despite the lack of communication, their unusual activities did manage to attract the attention of Radio 4, and unbeknown to them their flip-flop fetish broadcast across breakfast tables world-wide, whilst their solar-powered infield editing set-up was a colourful feature in Audio Visual Magazine.

Two years and one wedding later, armed with eighty hours of Flip-Flop footage (and a unique specialist knowledge) they left the quiet islands and moved to London for the final stages of Post-production, teaming-up with music composer Richard-Blair Oliphant and sound-designer James Snowden (www.onehandclapping.org), finally completing ‘Flip Flotsam’ in March 2003.

Etienne and Lucy’s passion for filmmaking and story-telling, their well-established relationships with the people of the islands and their thorough knowledge of the area are vividly reflected in the intimate style of the film which not only exposes the vibrant and quirky reality of Flip Flops, but also incorporates the social dimension and natural diversity of this extraordinary corner of East Africa.

They are now back in East Africa having joined forces with Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone in the making of a film about the ecology of African Fig trees.