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On his 2014 album, Afropolites DreamsSamuel Bazawule, a hip-hop artist, also known as "Blitz the Ambbadador," vividly describes his wide-eyed immigrant journey to a multinational success story. In one song, he says, "I think I'm definitely going back to Ghana."
And he did it.
Taking leave from home in Brooklyn and returning to his country of birth was a decisive decision that Bazawule attributes as a source of inspiration for his first feature film, The funeral of Kojo. Modern fable of a girl navigating in the realm of spirits to find her father after his mysterious disappearance, the film takes place entirely in Ghana, using a cast and a team composed almost entirely of locals.
The funeral of Kojo attracted the attention of producer and director Ava DuVernay, who acquired it earlier this year for distribution by its production company, ARRAY. On Sunday, the film will debut on Netflix – Ghana's first original film to be released on the streaming platform.
Bazawule has been talking to Michel Martin of NPR about the project.
Highlights of the interview
Make the transition from music to film.
I had been making music for six years by the time I did Afropolites Dreamsand I slowly realized that I did not realize that trying to communicate this Africanity through music did not do it. So I knew I had to expand the palette. I have been a visual artist since I was a kid. I made music and I thought the cinema was the next logical step. This allows us to combine all these things we know, visual and sound, and that puts people in the shoes of characters, so it makes sense as a medium.
On the theme of mining in Africa in The funeral of Kojo
You can not tell a story about Africa today without highlighting the environment and its exploitation, whether through mining, wood processing or any other source of information. access to natural resources. It's also seeing China play a role on the continent and that very large European companies continue to manage things. So for me, it was very important that it be present. But I never wanted to make a story centered on [on] this.
On the representations of the film of family relations
The film is about two brothers who have a jagged past, and a brother is missing. We think that his brother is responsible for it, but his daughter has to go on this magical journey to find him when no one else can – the police can not, and his wife can not.
The pivot scene [between father and daughter Kojo and Esi] is in fante, which is a dialect of twi. [Esi] says, "You know, if you leave me, I'll turn in the wind, disappear into the air and find you." And the father replies, "You do not have to turn yourself into air or go anywhere, I'll never leave you."
It's one of those moments that, I have the feeling, has not been seen often in cinema – father-daughter relations – but in African cinema where he is tender and sincere. In making this film, I was very focused on nuclear relations. I focused on family and family relationships, family drama, family dynamics, loss, betrayal, love. Things that, again, are not often seen in African cinema.
Filming with a fully Ghanaian cast and crew
History is a matter of autonomy – who should control the story and who should tell it. I felt that many African films did not have the kind of autonomy that they should have. And you can see by the choices that are made in cinematic when it is clear that someone in the room just did not understand.
So, in this film, autonomy was the first thing to do. If we are going to make a film, then we should add to the canon of cinema, but more specifically to the canon of African cinema. This forced us to join our heads with other Africans to tell them, "What do you know, what do you remember?" And these memories are the way I'm going to build the basis of this film.
For me, the genesis of the story begins with the stories of my grandmother. You know, you're sitting late into the night listening to fairy tales, folk tales, magic tales and things that only your mind can imagine. For me, making this movie was central and I continued in this tradition.
On the vibrant color palette of the film
It was to reflect what I know. Africa is so rich visually, fabrics on the market look like clay and earth. It's so alive.
And it always seems strange to me to watch films from the continent that are often desaturated and almost sepia. I'm always confused, because it's clear that whoever colorizes it has probably never been to content, or certainly has not walked the market, because when you do, you realize that color comes to you in the spirit.
Want a diverse and multinational audience to The funeral of Kojo
For me, that's the reason why I'm doing art from the beginning. I do not think it's okay that a continent of over 1.2 billion inhabitants has such a small visual representation, especially in the cinema.
If you ask the average person how many African films have been seen, it will be confusing. The numbers are one digit. If you ask an African how many American movies have been seen, it's his whole life.
So, if we understand that cinema is a way to create empathy and that you play people you've never met and that you understand their situation, you understand how important it is that our films are not only presented locally, they play globally. Because in this global discourse, it is so that we form our ideas of each other. And if the films that are made from the continent are not made by Africans or controlled by Africans, the narrative is still one that does not really illustrate Africa.
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