School of Cinematic Arts alumni Arthur Musah and Brook Sitgraves Turner attended the on-campus showing of their new award-winning documentary, “Brief Tender Light,” (2023) Wednesday, in one of multiple screenings of the film during Black History Month. The film, 13 years in the making, tells the story of five international students, Musah included, coming from several countries in Africa to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and their transformation as people and professionals in college and beyond.

Musah and Sitgraves Turner met as USC students in two different graduate programs at SCA. Their partnership was a no-brainer and led to a professional relationship that continues until today, Sitgraves Turner and Musah said in an interview with the Daily Trojan.

“[SCA] does a fairly good job of encouraging students within each program to mix and mingle, and collaborate together and that’s really nice,” Sitgraves Turner said. “You kind of got to look around at the people that you’re in school with and just see, ‘What can you guys do together?’”

Despite starting the project formally over a decade ago, the story and themes of youthful idealism go back much further. Musah was himself one of the examples of this when traveling to undergo his undergraduate studies abroad at 19 years old, traveling from his native Ghana all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“When I was flying over … there were a lot of other Ghanaian students on that flight, headed to colleges all over the [United States],” Musah said. “We were going to some of the best universities in the world and were excited about making that journey count for our homes.”

Over time, however, Musah also started to see within himself changes that he would then seek to explore in others through his documentary. Suddenly, coming back home the second after graduation to help his nation was not the only option.

“Over the years, as I lived and settled into the U.S. … I realized it wasn’t just me, but it was actually a majority of former students who were continuing their lives away from home,” Musah said. “I was always curious about, ‘Wwhat is that change? Why isn’t [the students’] return immediate, and what is [an immediate return] like?’”

Despite the idea staying with Musah for many years, the original conception for the film was to follow the students for a shorter period of time. As filming progressed, however, the filmmakers saw a greater opportunity to tell a deeper story.

“The first version [of the proposed film] was a one-year shoot, casting different people from different stages of the college experience,” Musah said. “Thinking about it some more, it made sense to make it longitudinal and watch the same people grow.”

In the context of Black History Month, the filmmakers also spoke on the importance of telling real African stories that represent the continent to a wide audience while not falling into stereotypes. Each story told had different motivations, experiences and outcomes.

“It’s really great to see Africans as not a monolith,” Sitgraves Turner said. “Each one of these students [is] very different, comes from different socioeconomic backgrounds, [has] different interests and drives.”

One of many themes tackled in the documentary is the idea of being Black in the U.S. For all of the students, coming to study in the U.S. also implied a transition from being part of the majority to being judged for their skin color. This, Sitgraves Turner highlighted, is a crucial takeaway of the film given the state of the country and the world.

“[The students] are coming of age in America, where they’re more so conceptualizing being Black outside somewhere they are the majority,” Sitgraves Tuner said. “Seeing that awakening is also quite interesting and important for not only white and other students to see but also Black students to see.”

Recent SCA graduate and filmmaker Don John attended the screening and highlighted some of the most awe-inspiring aspects of the production. In contrast to narrative filmmaking, he said documentaries require different perspectives, focuses, and decisions, and “Brief Tender Light” reminded him of just that.

“Ninety-three minutes to tell [five] stories really effectively is really masterful editing,” John said. “I forget how much of a struggle it is to tell a non-scripted story, especially over the course of [13] years … There’s just a whole other skill set that you have to have in order to tell a story like this.”

“Brief Tender Light” will be screened again tomorrow at the Pan African Film & Arts Festival 2024 and is streaming on PBS POV through April 14.