Mami Wata
Regular price
$375.00
Unit price
per
- Directed by: C.J. Obasi
- Released: 2024 (educational)
- Year of Production: 2021
Running Time: 107 min
Language: English, West African Pidgin English, Fon
Subtitle Options: English Closed Captions
Subjects: African Studies, Narrative Feature
In the oceanside village of Iyi, the revered Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) acts as an intermediary between the people and the all-powerful water deity Mami Wata. But when a young boy is lost to a virus, Efe’s devoted daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and skeptical protégé Prisca (Evelyne Ily Juhen) warn Efe about unrest among the villagers. With the sudden arrival of a mysterious rebel deserter named Jasper (Emeka Amakeze), a conflict erupts, leading to a violent clash of ideologies and a crisis of faith for the people of Iyi.
C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s potent modern fable deploys vivid monochromatic black-and-white cinematography, rich sound design, and a hypnotic score in a folk-futurist style both earthy and otherworldly. Obasi depicts a pitched battle between opportunistic militants promising technological progress and a matriarchal spiritual order living in fragile harmony with the ocean. Mami Wata transports us to a place that seems both suspended in time and perhaps running out of time, as the threats of modern life wash up on its shores.
Official Selection at Sundance Film Festival
"Obasi manages to distill themes that are at once primal and complex with virtuosic simplicity via the film’s arresting score, its refined story and dialogue and its black and white cinematography, which is more striking than most any modern Technicolor fantasy. It’s a tightly controlled vision that, like many parables, induces a sense of the suddenly, viscerally new — in the look of a figure against the ocean, or the words of a mother telling her child to run — in what we’ve seen before and have always known."
— New York Times
— New York Times
About the filmmaker
Born and raised in small town, Owerri, Nigeria. C.J. grew up watching Hammer House horror films and reading Stephen King novels. As a child, he developed a knack for drawing comics based on all his favorite movies and superheroes at the time. Comics which he would sell to his peers much to their delight.Much later on in life, C.J. would put aside his degree in Computer Science from the University of Nigeria (UNN) to launch into filmmaking, full time.
C.J. fondly called "Fiery" or "The Fiery One" is a genre-filmmaker from Nigeria, whose feature debut "Ojuju" - a zero budget film, premiered at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) in November 2014, and won the award for "Best Nigerian Film". OJUJU has screened in about 20 film festivals, including the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, Shockproof Film Festival in Prague, New Voices in Black Film Festival in New York, Nollywood Week Festival in Paris, and Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, garnering universal acclaim despite its zero budget status from the likes of Screen Anarchy (formerly TwitchFilm), Bloody Disgusting, Shadow & Act, IndieWire, The Hollywood Reporter and many others. Obasi for his 'groundbreaking work' on Ojuju was awarded the Trailblazer of the Year award in March 2015, at the Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards (AMVCA). Ojuju has been listed in IndieWire's Top 12 Best Zombie Movies of All Time list.
Obasi's sophomore effort is the feature film "O-Town", a crime thriller piece, which he calls his "Western in an Eastern land" and describes as his "exploration into genre-filmmaking". O-Town premiered at the 2015 Africa International Film Festival, followed by a Nordic premiere at the 2016 Gothenburg Film Festival, Sweden. It was nominated for Best West African Int'l Film at the Screen Nation Awards, UK, and won the Achievement in Soundtrack award at the 2016 African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), as well as two nominations in the Best Nigerian Film & Most Promising Actress categories. O-Town won the award for Best Director at the Lake City Film Festival (LACIFF), 2016.
Obasi acquired the option to Hello, Moto an African-Futuristic short story by the World Fantasy, Hugo & Nebula award winning Nigerian-American author, Nnedi Okorafor. The short film titled "Hello, Rain" had its world premiere at the Oscar-qualifying International Competition of the Internationale Short Film (Kurzfilmtage) Oberhausen in May 2018, and has gone on to screen in over 20 festivals, including a headline screening at Africa Utopia hosted by the Southbank Centre in London, as well as a North American premiere at Fantasia Film Festival where it received the Special Mention of the Jury prize. Hello, Rain was also selected for the BFI London Film Festival where it was also shortlisted as a nominee for the prestigious Short Film Award. Hello, Rain has also been featured on CNN and BBC for its strides in Afrofuturism and fantasy.
As a screenwriter, Obasi is a writer on the comedy-drama Lionheart, directed by Genevieve Nnaji. Lionheart had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and is the first Netflix Original Film from Nigeria. Obasi also contributed his writing to the forthcoming Living in Bondage sequel by Ramsey Nouah. Obasi is one-third of the new cinema collective from Nigeria known as Surreal16. Together they produced & directed the anthology short film Visions, which premiered at the 2017 AFRIFF, and was also part of a video installation at the LagosPhoto Festival. Visions won the Jury Prize for Best Film at In-Short Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). The Collective also co-directed Juju Stories, an anthology feature film featuring three stories featuring urban legends within contemporary Nigeria, written and directed by Obasi, Makama and Omonua.
Obasi signed on as a director on the Untitled and first Nigerian Netflix Original Series by Akin Otomoso. He is presently in the pre-production stage for Mami Wata - a black and white female-driven fantasy thriller based on the popular Mermaid Goddess of West African mythology. Mami Wata was selected to participate in the Ouaga Film Lab, Burkina Faso, where it won the European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) prize, and will participate in the EAVE Producer's Workshop taking place in Luxemburg, Serbia and Germany in March, June and October 2019 respectively. Mami Wata was also selected to participate in Le Groupe Ouest's Less is More (LIM) European development lab for limited budget films which took place in March, June and October across Poland, Romania and France respectively. Mami Wata was awarded the Sørfond - Norwegian South Fund award at the 10th Durban FilmMart, which took place at the 40th Durban International Film Festival (DIFF). Obasi also served on the DIFF jury.
Obasi is represented by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
Host a Screening and Book the Filmmaker at your Event