Bantú Mama

This project was born out of a desire to tell an urban story in the Caribbean and to bring life to descendants of the African diaspora. By highlighting their relationship or lack of relationship with Africa, we want to awake the memory of these forgotten origins and initiate reconciliation with roots that are often denied.


 The script was written by Clarisse Albrecht and I. Clarisse is French and Cameroonian, she spent her childhood living in different African countries. I’m Dominican, I’ve always been aware of my African origins, yet my union with Clarisse allowed me to confront my fantasized but also truncated vision of Africa with a more cultural and daily approach. From then on, I wondered how to break the clichés, how to do justice to this culture, and spread it around. 


As a result of these thoughts, we came up with the story of an “Afro-European” woman whom fate unexpectedly brings together with Afro-Caribbean children. All in search of a better life that they cannot clearly define. It is with this scheme behind, that the epilogue leads us to a conclusion that breaks the pattern of the Western world as the ultimate land of success, opening the door to the idea that it is possible to find happiness elsewhere, for example, by simply returning to the Motherland, Africa. 
 We want to share this message with the world, especially with the people from emerging countries from Africa, Latin-America, and the Caribbean region.
 
This story also allows me to draw the universal portrait of hood folklore through a drama, without reinforcing the idea of chaos and misery but on the contrary, with poetry and cinematic elegance. As Director Barry Jenkins said about his feature film ‘Moonlight’: "Instead of taking the hood to the arthouse, we're gonna bring the arthouse to the hood."