Ghanaian rapper Blitz Bazawule wrote and directed his first film of 1h20 minutes which immerses us in the memories of Esi, a 7 year old granddaughter. In this magical quest where she will try to save her father, Kojo, we will discover a Ghana swept by illegal mining, Chinese capitalism and unemployment.

In this film that combines dream and reality, myths, religions and telenovelas are also mixed.

As a recipe for this good film, one should take a handful of characters from a modern family (a father, a mother, a child), oppose them to a character from the African family (uncle), all soaked in a soup of real history mixed with a handful of voice-over driving utopia.

Without too much dialogue, with a striking and non-invasive music and the close-up in the shots, we feel like we are witnessing a reality.

The rapper « Blitz the ambassador » has meticulously prepared the images of his feature film with his cinematographer Michael Fernandez, preparing a very elaborate and exhaustive storyboard, listing in two hundred pages the six hundred shots of his film to come; and we feel this acute application when we watch it, as each image looks like a painting, and is often visually stunning.

Wanting to make a film about the situation of the people who are buried living in the wells of gold deposits in his country, he knew how to touch the psychological situation of a human being at the loss of a close relative. This example is in line with David Lynch’s belief that a filmmaker should be content to make a film about the problems of his time.

Winner of the Grand Prize at the Urban World Film Festival in New York in 2018 and also at the Pan African Film Festival in Luxor in 2019 ( Grand Prize of the Nile)

The burial of Kojo is broadcast by Canal +.
 
Kosi SESSI

Correction:
Samuel Akpéné Wilsi