“Enough.” By Nathan Nzanga
Using footage captured over a decade, "enough." is a musical concept film exploring one American's path from quirky kid born to Congolese immigrants, to idealistic teenage artist, to a frustrated young man struggling after grace amidst pain. Set against a backdrop of a culture war, the film uses dream logic to sift through his most conflicted feelings about race, policing and one’s place in a broken world.
My name is Nathan Nzanga, I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. Second son of two diligent Congolese immigrants. The American dream for my parents was working tirelessly to make sure their four kids would have the opportunity to live out their dreams. They worked too hard for me not to give this moment my all.
When I was 16, I watched Philando Castile and Alton Sterling killed on camera. Soon after I read about six officers shot down in Baton Rouge. So I wrote my first song, and the first one in this film, "Truce." I was just a kid at summer camp trying to make a difference. Every day watching the news seemed like the world was getting worse, but at camp I learned how Humanity naturally bonds together through storytelling, so that’s what I set out to do. By the time George Floyd was murdered four years later, my feelings had changed. I'd changed. But the world hadn't. So I wrote a sequel to that first song called "Enough."
Prodigy Camp is where Caleb and I met as mentors for young filmmakers and young musicians. The founder of the camp Rick Stevenson had been interviewing me since I was a kid so I could look back and see how I changed growing up. When camp got cancelled due to the pandemic, we had an idea of how we could come together as a community and use all these pieces to make something more bigger than all of us. ENOUGH was created by the honest conversations that took place in the wake of the protests, and by my camp family trying to lift me up at a really hard time.
We have a problem in the US with dehumanizing each other. We can't fix it in a moment, but we can keep the movement alive. The years-long movement for Black Lives, the decades-long movement for Civil Rights, the centuries-long movement for a free and equal America, and the millennia-long movement for a society without tribalism and oppression. I want to prove in my lifetime it can be done.
Tomorrow’s a reflection of today. If I want things to be better later on, I gotta start doing something right now. I consider myself a professional storyteller and a Love Advocate. I challenge myself to do right by you by being genuine and empathizing with you regardless of the circumstance, in hopes that you’ll be willing to do the same for me.
I wanna love you, so let me get know you.
I want you to love me, so hear me out.
Hope my story resonates,
Nzanga
Credits
Directed by Caleb Slain
Starring: Nathan Nzanga
Music & Lyrics by Nathan Nzanga
Created in Community at Prodigy Camp
Producers: Rick Stevenson, Max Losee, Ethan Senekar, Hope Alexander, Jennette Vasiljevic, La'Charles Trask, Caleb Slain
Co-Executive Producers: William Way, Nathan Nzanga, Elizabeth Neufeld
Director of Photography: Drew Dawson
Production Designer: Hadley Hillel
Edited by Nick Pezzillo & Caleb Slain
Wardrobe: Ron Leaman
Color Correction: Chad Terpstra
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