C.J. Obasi shot Mami Wata entirely in black and white and it is one of the...

C.J. Obasi shot Mami Wata entirely in black and white and it is one of the most visually arresting African films made in this decade.

A coastal West African village worships Mami Wata, the powerful water spirit who protects them. When their faith is tested by a mysterious stranger and political instability, the community fractures in ways that reveal what they truly believe versus what they merely perform.

Sundance 2023. World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It earned every moment of international attention it received.

Obasi uses the black and white not as an aesthetic choice but as a philosophical one. The world of the film exists between the living and the mythological. Color would have chosen a side. Monochrome lets both worlds coexist in the same frame.

This is not Nollywood in the conventional sense. It is African cinema in the most complete, serious sense of that phrase.

Rating: 9/10. Art cinema from Africa at its most ambitious.

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