World Cinema Fund (WCF) will fund the production of Akosua Adoma Owusu’s debut feature film ‘Black Sunshine ‘at the cost of $55,000.

She is one of 5 directors who got the backing from the managers of WCF out of a total of 126 applications from film directors in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central and South West Asia.

‘Black Sunshine’ won the ARTE International Prize at Durban FilmMart.

The film tells the story of hairdresser, Effie Konadu, who longs to escape her frustrating reality, and her 12 year old albino daughter, Asabea. Effie feels ashamed of birthing an albino child, and ironically, of her own blackness. She is an insecure and disenchanted single mother that resorts to skin lightening products to lighten her own skin.

Her emotional instability is further strained by the arrival of a white European man named Remy Savant. Effie pursues a tempestuous love affair with the foreigner, only to find him in a merciless mirror that confronts her to the crushing realities of her own condition. Asabea struggles with her mother’s rejection drives her to find solace from a mysterious black boy called Shebere (Destiny).

Through Shebere, Asabea explores what it would feel like to belong. She is tempted to follow the call of her imaginary friend into the world beyond.

Black Sunshine examines albino Africans as tropes for cross cultural identity while creatively engaging in representations of beauty and unbalanced power relations in the intricacies of everyday life.

Akosua won the Best Short Film prize at the 2013 African Academy Movie Awards (AMAA) for ‘Kwaku Ananse” which was screened at a number of film festivals around the world, and was named by BuniTV as one of the 10 filmmakers of African descent that they loved in 2013.

Other movies directed by her include Me Broni Ba, Split Ends, I feel wonderful and Intermittent Delight.

‘Save the Rex’, a kickstarter initiative to refurbish the Rex Cinema in Accra as a space for creative arts, was spearheaded by her.

By: Gameli Hamelo/enewsgh.com