Ama K Abebrese
Ghanaian film ‘The Burial of Kojo’ has been listed among the ‘best films of 2019 so far’ by the New Yorker Magazine.
This has come on the heels of the film getting a lot of international reviews on major American platforms such as Hollywoodreporter.com, Newyorker.com, Latimes.com, nytimes.com, among others.
‘The Burial of Kojo’ is the story of a young girl named Esi (Cynthia Dankwa), who lives with her mother, Ama (Mamley Djangmah), and her father, Kojo (Joseph Otsiman), in a wondrous but poor part of Ghana—a village of small houses built on struts in a lake and connected to the shore by narrow, slatted walkways. Esi tells her story—narrated in voice-over by her grown-up self (played by Ama K. Abebrese)—with a tone of reminiscence that restores the perspective of her childhood.
Directed by Blitz Bazawule, who was born and raised in Ghana but now based in Brooklyn, USA, the film was a few days ago released on Netflix to join the list of international films on that platform.
It is also one of the films that is projecting Ghana at international film festival circles. The film was an official selection of the 2019 Pan African Film Festival and the 2018 Urbanworld Film Festival Best Narrative Feature winner. It was also selected for Luxor Film Festival in Egypt, where it won Grand Nile Prize for Best Long Narrative (the Golden Mask of Tutankhamen).
Making the list of ‘best films of 2019 so far’ is a good feat for the film. Other films that made the list with ‘The Burial of Kojo’ are ‘Us’, ‘Two Plains & A Fancy’, ‘The Image Book’, ‘Hotel By The River’, ‘High Flying Bird’ and a host of others.