A haunting documentary about a community of women condemned to live as witches in Northern Ghana. Made over the course of five years, this disturbing exposé is the product of a collaboration between members of the hundred-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. Co-presented by Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

SCREENING WITH

The Deliverance of Comfort
Zina Saro Wiwa, Nigeria, 2010; 8m

A short satirical fable about a “child witch” called Comfort. The film is a critical and densely-layered response to the belief in child witches in some parts of rural Nigeria and Africa. Deliverance questions the very nature of belief and comments on the complex relationship between pre-Christian pagan belief and modern day Nigerian Christianity.

SCREENING WITH

Taharuki (Suspense)
Ekwa Msangi-Omari, USA/Kenya, 2011; 12m
Set against the backdrop of the start of the devastating post-election violence that took place in Kenya in 2007-08 and has left tens of thousands of Kenyans homeless, traumatized or dead, Taharuki (Suspense) is the fictional account of a man and woman from opposing ethnic tribes who work for an underground liberation movement to expose a child-trafficking cartel.

SCREENING WITH

Phyllis
Zina Saro Wiwa, Nigeria, 2010; 14m<br />
Telling the story of a psychic vampire who lives alone in Lagos, this film plays with and reworks certain narrative, stylistic and visual conventions of Nollywood. The central idea of this short movie is the practice and significance of wig-wearing in Nollywood films. Women often wear wigs in Nollywood and the “wickeder” the woman, often the more colorful and ridiculous the wig, nails and make-up. This movie also explores the gothic possibilities of the Nollywood aesthetic and attempts to create a new kind of low-budget atmospheric film that is very much of Nollywood and yet subverts the genre. In effect, it uses Nollywood to challenge Nollywood.