Cry Out Loud was a collaboratively produced feature length film that explored the lives of several men and women from the diverse African community residing in Khirkee Extension, Delhi. The film, a project conceived by visual anthropologist Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan, put the camera back in the hands of a crew of young men from Somalia, who over the course of a year, worked on all aspects of production and post-production.
Together, Dattatreyan and the crew narrated through film the stories of everyday life for the Cameroonian, Nigerian, Ugandan, Ivorian and Somali men and women of Khirkee. These people put into perspective the violent eruptions that occurred during filming and discussed how and why they are targeted as undesirable outsiders.
Waiting Subjects was a small exhibition of self-portraits taken by Somali filmmakers – Hassan Abdi, Ahmed Ex, Young Hafes, AbdullahiIdris, and Abdul Abdulkhadir in collaboration with Dattatreyan, during the production of Cry Out Loud. These young men are political refugees, they have spent many years in India with their families as they petition the United Nations Human Rights Commission for a third country option, to make a more permanent home. The photos in Waiting Subjects explored how the indeterminacy of waiting shapes their subjectivities — who they are and who they wish to be in the world.