Tamo Junto is a UK-based filmmaking organisation, founded by Sam Liebmann and built in close collaboration with Lee McKarkiel. Sam and Lee first met 16 years ago, making a documentary in Rocinha community in Rio de Janeiro, where they delivered film making workshops, and produced a feature documentary Vai Cair Mais Terra, which explored the community’s daily lives and how they survived the armed conflict and abandonment by the state. Tamo Junto’s goal is to collaborate with people from around the world to make films that spark meaningful dialogue on critical global and local issues, while inspiring social action to address them. Their particular focus is on representing and partnering with marginalised groups using a range of film-making processes, from direct reporting to complete participatory involvement. Tamo Junto’s focus is on the power of making films with and not just about disenfranchised groups. Its priority is to shine a light on important issues through the perspective of those with the lived experience.
Tamo Junto has previously collaborated with the University of Bristol, as part of their research project Modern Marronage, The Pursuit and Practice of Freedom in the Contemporary World. Their role primarily led training and co-creating films with young asylum seekers and refugees in the UK, as an ongoing conversation reflecting on the complexity of freedom.
Tamo Junto’s founder Sam Liebmann has been a film maker for over 15 years. His work centres on making local impact, working with groups across different cultures, delivering long-term training at various skill levels. As a documentary director-producer and journalist, Sam has made films and series for broadcasters including BBC Africa Eye, Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle. He is also fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and has lived and worked in Brazil. For fifteen years, Sam has been delivering film training with young people in Sierra Leone, and continues to work in partnership with filmmaking cooperative Apex Multimedia Sierra Leone, who will also be partnering on this project.
Lee McKarkiel got into filmmaking through Hi8us South participatory media organisation, then went on to work for them for 10 years. His work involved working with disadvantaged young people from across England, facilitating filmmaking workshops, running training productions, with a focus on editing. As well participatory filmmaking, Lee brings expertise from filmmaking at the highest level in editing and post-production: he edited BBC’s Bafta-winning Sitting in Limbo, about the Windrush scandal, Killing Eve (BBC), and Lollypop (BBC films), which premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
https://www.tamojuntodocs.com/