A Lot Like You

raises questions about the cultures we inherit and the cultures we choose to pass down...

What happens when a woman goes in search of her identity and discovers that the cycle of violence she’s been working hard to break in the US is part of her history and culture on another continent?

A Lot Like You raises questions about the cultures we inherit and what we choose to pass down, and reveals how bearing witness can break silences that have lasted lifetimes.

Seattle-based filmmaker Eliaichi Kimaro is a mixed-race, first-generation American. Her Tanzanian father and Korean mother were career economists, working for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, respectively.

Eliaichi grew up in the suburbs of Washington DC, surrounded by her mother’s side of the family. But her Tanzanian connection was more remote. Her father was the only one in his family to leave his village and Chagga tribe on Mt. Kilimanjaro. So most of what Eliaichi knew about her Chagga culture came from her father’s childhood stories.

When she was older, and in an interracial relationship of her own, Eliaichi wanted to better understand this world her father had left behind when he was 18. When Dr. Kimaro retired in 2002 and moved back to Tanzania for good, Eliaichi decided to follow him and make a film about this culture she would one day pass down to her kids.

What Eliaichi discovered on that trip – in Tanzania, in her family and in herself – is the subject of this personal documentary, A Lot Like You, which examines one woman’s discovery as only she can tell it.

Initially, her father was her bridge to this culture, a connection that gave her access to her family’s stories. But Eliaichi also brought an outsider’s curiosity, which led her to ask questions that most people who grew up there would never think to ask. When her questions unearthed hidden truths, Eliaichi found a deep and personal connection to this culture, one that was distinctly her own.

The stoic women in her family decided to open up about their lives, telling Eliaichi stories about trauma and survival that they’d never even shared with each other. Eliaichi’s own experiences, as an abuse survivor and a professional counselor for over 10 years, prepared her to bear witness to her Aunts’ stories. This simple act of sitting together and asking questions released these women from a lifetime of pain, and inspired Eliaichi to dig deeper and reveal the hidden truths of her own story.

As the film ends, Eliaichi reconciles this culture she’s inherited with how she defines herself today–as a woman, as an activist and, perhaps most of all, as a mother. And in so doing, she translates her father’s culture on Mt. Kilimanjaro into her own personal legacy.

A Lot Like You explores issues of:
o interracial relationships
o mixed race/multicultural identities
o sexual abuse
o intergenerational trauma
o gender violence
o female genital cutting
o first generation American experiences
o migrant experiences