Andy Mundy-Castle on 'Shoot The People', Misan Harriman and how we can all make a difference

There’s a moment in Andy Mundy-Castle’s Shoot the People where photographer and activist Misan Harriman is sat opposite Martin Luther King III. It’s a full circle moment for the photographer whose rise in the scene saw him as the photographer selected for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s pregnancy announcement with youngest child, Lilibet. Coming to prominence for his documentation of Climate, Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump protests, Harriman’s eye was critical in capturing a depth of human fear, resilience and most importantly hope for a brighter future. “It took us a good 18 months to fully make it, but it was completed just under two years ago and the truth is, it's just as relevant now as it was then… the cyclical nature of protest, challenge, tension, injustice. These are things that only seem to be getting worse the more we are under the control of a very small group of people. For me the film is a constant reminder that resistance isn't dangerous, resistance isn't problematic…” Credit: Watermelon Pictures Mundy-Castle, a BAFTA winning director and producer, who is known for ‘White Nanny, Black Child’, which looks at the lives of Black children placed in foster care with white caregivers between the 1950s to 1990s decided to turn his eye to his industry friend Harriman as the focus of his latest documentary. Mundy-Castle distinctly remembers purchasing “a load” of editions of British Vogue back in 2020. This was the commission of then editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, it was called the Activism Now Issue and marked a groundbreaking moment in the fashion magazine’s history as Harriman became the first ever Black male photographer to shoot a cover for British Vogue. “I'm a staunch supporter of independence, especially when it's Black creatives, and it's important to show up and be out when people are putting their head above the parapet and really sort of centering our Black experiences and Black creativity. Someone that's within that ecosystem I love to support in whichever way I can,” Mundy-Castle explains as he reflects on what it was like to encounter Harriman’s work and activism. From then Mundy-Castle knew he’d wanted to make contact with Harriman and through the power of a strong network the two were connected and “the rest is history.” The two began conversing around “key civil rights moments that inspired him [Misan Harriman]” and the Shoot the People researchers took a deep dive into Harriman’s social media, which told a strong narrative around his likes, inspirations and desires for the future. The act of sourcing archival footage for this documentary was easy. Most of it stemmed from Harriman’s own lens/archives but Mundy-Castle was bolstered by the “phenomenal” expertise of Archives Producer, Bryony Clark, who is amazing at accessing deep archival footage and imagery. One example of this was Mundy-Castle sharing that, “I'd never seen Martin Luther King in colour, for instance.” Clark managed to source exactly what the team needed, taking a “massive weight off all of our shoulders.” Mundy-Castle was in awe at Clark’s work ethic and her ability to source such hard to find content, alongside her Mundy-Castle continued to use his personal network to source other archive moments that would help shape the film’s narrative. “I was looking for a clip of James Baldwin that I'd only seen a snippet of on Instagram, but I wanted to see the whole thing,” Mundy-Castle explains on how the next big archive grab happened. “It transpires that it was for a British production company about 40 years ago, when he was living in Paris.” Mundy-Castle, coincidentally knew the person who’d filmed the content with Baldwin and that led to them eventually obtaining “the archive from the person who owned the rights and had the material in their hand, and that was… just very fortuitous.” Credit: Watermelon Pictures Presenting Harriman’s story to the MLK Estate was another challenge. “It was part of the clues that he was leaving on his social media, so in his TED talk, he'd spoken very much about how that moment and that share from MLK III had changed his life and changed the trajectory, so it was very easy for us to sort of put that into context,” Mundy-Castle explains matter of factly. There had always been plans for the doc to have footage of Harriman in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s home to the second largest metropolitan Black population in the country, as well as being the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was too important to pass up on filming in the city which held so much history. Mundy-Castle describes the meeting of the two activists simply as “a really beautiful moment”, and you feel that whilst watching the documentary but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t moments Mundy-Castle and his team wrestled with whilst making this doc. We travel to South Africa, where elders are campaigning for reparations, “our wonderful Assistant Producer, Claire Vargas, had heard and done some research on this group of people that were still trying to make amends from the wrongs that were done during apartheid, and obviously we were going to South Africa to recognise 30 years since the fall of apartheid.” It is a real emotional moment in the documentary that is felt through the screen. These are our elders, parents and grandparents, reckoning with shadows of a past that many have yet to truly heal from and “I was weeping during the shooting of that scene” states Mundy-Castle as he reflects on what it was like to meet those who’d been fighting for justice for close to 90 days away from home. “South Africa has, you know, a significant amount of wealth coming out of that country, going into other places, but yet there are still people who have suffered, who have been pillaged and broken, but still their spirit is so alive, you know. There was something for me that I was just broken. I was filming, we were filming when I went into the corner and I was just bawling, but I looked over my shoulder. The producer was in another corner, broken. And then the cameraman put his camera down, just like, I just need to take a break for a second…” Mundy-Castle later explains that this film, which they ended up showcasing at Johannesburg Film Festival, was seen by lawyers who then decided to take on the activists' case. More than anything Mundy-Castle wants us to reflect on how anyone can be ‘activated’ to perform activism, to have a deeper conversation with their neighbour and to “lend your hand and your voice in whichever way you can, and as you climb, you lift people up behind you.” Watermelon Pictures’ Shoot The People is available to watch at home or to watch in cinemas across the UK and USA