Hawa Essuman: Soul Boy

FESPACO 2011 WATCH:  Official Competition - TV/Video Fiction

Ghanaian-Kenyan filmmaker Hawa Essuman's foray into the moving image started as a trainee director for the television series Makutano Junction, by the second season she was the assistant director. She quickly gained the confidence and experience to venture into film and in 2009 completed Lift and Selfish.  Hawa directed Soul Boy under the tutelage of German director Tom Tykwer who initiated the film workshop from which the film evolved. 

During an interview at the Göteborg International Film Festival's world premiere of Soul Boy, she reflected on her source of inspiration and how film contributes to making the world a better place.

Below is a transcription of excerpts of the interview by Neta Norrmo of Aveny Production.

Humans [are my biggest source of inspiration]. I love human interaction and human relationships and how we absorb stories, conversations. How we look to better ourselves. I really enjoy that and how we question ourselves. I like the questioning and the curiosity of the human mind...

Film shows us who we are at that time and we are constantly changing and constantly moving forward. The film that I make today will inform us as to who we were then. It is a 3D snapshot of who it is we were at that time. And the film that's made after that will show us who we are then. That is what it is for. It is very informative. It's like any other piece of art in that respect. That you get to play over and over...

I've always been a fan of magical realism stories so to have the opportunity to direct a film that was set in that context was very exciting for me...

Synopsis of the film Soul Boy

Nairobi, Kenya. 14 year-old Abila lives with his parents in Kibera, one of the largest slums in East Africa. One morning the teenager discovers his father ill and delirious. Someone has stolen his soul, mumbles the father as he sits huddled in a corner. Abila is shocked and confused but wants to help his father and goes in search of a suitable cure.Supported by his friend Shiku who is the same age as him, he learns that his father has gambled his soul away in the company of a spiritual woman.

The teenager doesn’t want to believe it and sets about looking for the witch. When he finally discovers her in the darkest corner of the ghetto, she gives him seven challenging tasks to save his father’s lost soul. Abila embarks on an adventurous journey which leads him right through the microcosm of his home town.

Soul Boy (2009) by Hawa Essuman

Links

Soul Boy Website

Yaba Badoe: The Witches of Gambaga

©Yaba Badoe

FESPACO 2011 WATCH: Official Competition - Documentary

Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker and journalist. A graduate of King’s College Cambridge, she worked as a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a General Trainee with the BBC. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica. (Facebook Fan Profile)

Synopsis of Film:

The Witches of Gambaga (2010) is a haunting 55 minute documentary film about a community of women condemned to live as witches in Northern Ghana. Made over the course of 5 years, this disturbing expose is the product of a collaboration between members of the 100 strong community of ‘witches’, local women’s movement activists and feminist researchers, united by their interest in ending abusive practices and improving women’s lives in Africa. Painful experience and insight combine to generate a uniquely intimate record of the lives of women ostracized from their communities. Told largely by the women themselves, their incredible stories and struggles are rendered comprehensible to a wide range of audiences by the director’s narration. Completed in July 2010, Fadoa Films Ghana and UK, Directed by Yaba Badoe, Co-produced by Yaba Badoe and Amina Mama.

The Witches of Gambaga (Trailer) by Yaba Badoe

Links

Article about The Witches of Gambaga on the African Women's Development Fund Blog

Foremothers in African Cinema: Efua Sutherland

Efua Theodora Sutherland (1924-1996) renowned playwright from Ghana, affectionately called Auntie Efua, entered in the annals of African cinema history in 1967, in association with the production of Araba: The Village Story. The film was produced for the U.S. television network ABC to document the successful Atwia Experimental Community Theatre Project. The initiative is recognized worldwide as a pioneering model for the now popular Theatre for Development. She is well known and admired as dramatist and writer, continuing in her chosen field of drama having never produced another film. Her role as foremother in African cinema, documenting African culture and experiences, is indicative of the practices of many African women. Some women have entered filmmaking as a primary career, while others have used the moving image as a medium of expression in their work.  And thus, Efua Sutherland was a devoted and passionate cultural producer whose vision and influence continue to reach far and wide.

At the funeral of “Auntie Efua”, Kofi Anyidoho reflected on her life in this way:

Dr. Efua Theodora Sutherland. 'Auntie Efua' is best known for her pioneering work as a cultural visionary and activist, her impact on society at once comprehensive and enduring. Teacher, research scholar, poet, dramatist, and social worker, she devoted her life to the building of models of excellence in culture and education, and to the training of young people who would carry her vision into the far future…

…It was also in the final phase of her work that she gave to Ghana and the African world probably her grandest artistic vision for uplifting and reuniting African peoples through the arts—an original proposal for the Pan African Historical Theatre Festival, the Panafest Movement. This final gift underscores the significance she attached to connections between Africa and the Diaspora. She played a very critical role in the establishment of the W.E.B. DuBois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture. She belonged to an extensive global network of friends, many of them eminent creative minds.

Links:

“Auntie Efua We Cannot Forget” by Kofi Anyidoho. “Tributes”, published for the funeral of Efua Sutherland, 1996.

Efua Sutherland: Wikipedia

Other sources:

“In Memoriam: Efua Sutherland 1924-1996.” ALA Bulletin. African Literature Association. Summer 1996, pp. 8-19.

The Legacy of Efua Sutherland: Pan-African Cultural Activism. Anne V. Adams and Esi Sutherland-Addy. Ayebia Clarke Publishing Ltd; Africa Edition, 2007.