C.J. Obasi on African Myths, Style Twists and Sundance Pic ‘Mami Wata’

Seven years earlier than its Jan. 23 world premiere in Park Metropolis — the first-time {that a} homegrown Nigerian characteristic has scored a coveted slot within the World Cinema Dramatic competitors at Sundance — C.J. Obasi’s “Mami Wata” started with a imaginative and prescient.

The director was sitting on a West African seashore, in between tasks and considering his subsequent transfer. Abruptly, an apparition got here to him: A mermaid standing on the ocean’s shore, beckoning to a mysterious younger girl behind him.

“It was actually vivid,” Obasi says. “It was in black and white. Within the imaginative and prescient, the goddess’ eyes are crimson, but additionally very comfortable. There was a kindness to her eyes. Once I got here to, I stated, OK, so my subsequent film is ‘Mami Wata.’”

What adopted was a private {and professional} journey to know that second on the seashore, and to breathe life right into a film in regards to the titular mermaid-deity of West African folklore. Written and directed by Obasi, with hanging black-and-white cinematography by Brazilian DP Lílis Soares, “Mami Wata” is produced by Oge Obasi of Lagos-based Fiery Movie Firm and repped internationally by CAA Media Finance.

“Mami Wata” is ready within the legendary West African village of Iyi, whose inhabitants pay tribute to and search steering from the healer and religious middleman Mama Efe, performed by veteran Nigerian display star Rita Edochie. After a mysterious sickness begins to assert the lives of Iyi’s younger, an area man (Kelechi Udegbe) begins to sow doubts in regards to the healer’s capability to guard them.

With the arrival of a insurgent warlord (Emeka Amakeze) on the run from his violent previous, and the demise of Mama Efe, a brand new established order emerges within the village. It falls to the healer’s daughter, Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), and protégé, Prisca (Evelyne Ily), to avoid wasting the individuals of Iyi, establishing a battle between the villagers’ conventional beliefs and a extra fashionable, Western lifestyle.

The movie is, amongst different issues, a celebration of African womanhood — and sisterhood — a incontrovertible fact that owes partly to the director’s two late sisters, to whom “Mami Wata” is devoted. “I used to be raised by my sisters as a lot as I used to be raised by my mother and my dad. They have been my position fashions. They have been like superwomen,” he says. “That, for me, was my expertise of what an African girl is. It’s all I knew rising up. Once I turned extra mature, I noticed that I by no means noticed that in movie. These characters, Prisca and Zinwe, needed to be rooted in that.”

“Mami Wata” is an exploration and reimagination of West African mythology, one thing that has likewise been an outsized affect on Obasi all through his profession. “A method or one other, I delve into the occult. However I don’t see the occult as something evil,” he says. “It’s our tradition. It’s our spirituality. It’s who we’re.” He continues: “Once I method a narrative like ‘Mami Wata,’ it was crucial for me to not care about these perceptions and take a look at it the best way I feel we should always take a look at us” — that’s, to have fun African myths and storytelling by viewing them via an African lens, unencumbered by the Western gaze.

Obasi’s filmmaking has however tried to bridge the divide, exploring mainstream style conventions from an African perspective. The director’s first characteristic, the zero-budget zombie thriller “Ojuju,” was adopted by a semi-autobiographical gangster story, “O-City,” and a brief movie, “Hey, Rain,” based mostly on an Afrofuturist quick story by Nnedi Okorafor. Final yr, he co-directed the Locarno prize-winning anthology movie “Juju Tales,” a triptych of tales rooted in Nigerian folklore and concrete legend.

Obasi shared directing credit on the movie with fellow Nigerian helmers Abba Makama (“The Misplaced Okoroshi”) and Michael Omonua (“The Man Who Cuts Tattoos”), who’re the co-founders of the Surreal16 moviemaking collective. With a string of top-shelf pageant premieres already underneath its belt, the group is pushing Nigerian cinema past the mainstream tropes acquainted to followers of the nation’s prolific Nollywood movie business.

Maybe extra importantly, Obasi and his colleagues are serving to to redefine Nigerian — and African — cinema on the worldwide stage. “In the case of the dialogue of world cinema, there’s solely a sure understanding of what African cinema is. I’ve simply not been high-quality with that,” he says. “We’ve far more to supply: stylistically, aesthetically, narratively. We will actually do stuff that no one sees coming. That is only the start.”