Mami Wata

Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) is the Intermediary for the village of Iyi and the Goddess Mami Wata, but she is unable to prevent the death of a small child or, indeed, other calamities. Some villagers want to be rid of her, because they know that other villages have modernized, with electricity, schools, hospitals and roads, but other villagers are content to follow the ways of Mama Efe. When a young man is cast up on the sands of the ocean, near-dead, Mama Efe and her daughters Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and Prisca (Evelyne Ily) bring him back to health, but he repays them with evil, not good. And finally, the women must call upon Mami Wata for aid or face utter destruction....

I saw this at Montreal's great FantAsia Festival, and it is a breath-taking film to absorb; done in black-and-white, with intricate facial decorations, seashell adornments and gorgeous images of the sea, the land and the people, the story itself re-creates a mythological realm, where present and past and future all commingle; the ending of the tale brought tears to my eyes (but I won't spoil it by telling you why). There's not a lot of film from Africa that comes to North America in general, so I don't know how available this might be; but it is utterly beautiful to look at and utterly heart-filling to see.