Between Cultures: Recent African Shorts

Three award-winning portraits of African life, both on the continent and in the U.S. In Frances Bodomo’s Boneshaker, a family, lost in America, travels to a Louisiana church to find a cure for their troubled child. It stars Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild). Akosua Adoma Owusu’s spellbinding Kwaku Ananse brings to life a traditional Ghanian folktale, combining the contemporary with the mythological. Bentley Brown’s Faisal Goes West follows a Sudanese family to the U.S., where young son Faisal puts the family in a bind, triggering them to re-examine their American dream.

Boneshaker
Frances Bodomo, Ghana/U.S., 2013, 13 mins, Color, Digital video file

Kwaku Ananse
Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ghana, 2012, 25 mins, Color, DCP, From Piano

Faisal Goes West
Bentley Brown, U.S./Sudan, 34 mins, Color, Digital video file

Total running time: 72 mins