‘Fig Tree’ Is A Poignant Autobiographical Tale

Fig Tree film poster. 

With the Western obsessive “happily ever after” and “that love like our grandparents’ had” narrative, it takes ample courage and grit to tell a tragic coming of age love story. Set in Ethiopia around 1989, a friendship is tested in ways that Romeo and Juliet cannot compare. This situation is more gender and religion than family vendetta. The circumstances are more dire, stakes raised higher. Fig Tree‘s Mina and Eli have a beautiful relationship, but as such most things cannot always stay tied together like knotted ribbons. 

Eli (Yohannes Musa) and Mina (Betalehem Asmamawe) up in their fig tree. 

Smart, Jewish Mina shifts between tomboyish in her straight back braids and American shirts and shorts and maturing womanhood in an olive green checkered dress. Eli is a Christian, sweet-faced apple of his mother’s eye. Mina and Eli live together (her family is purposely hiding Eli). They are best friends, often running off to rendezvous beneath and around their fig tree. In that mystical meeting place, they can climb above those gnarly branches and be safe from the pop up soldiers kidnapping boys for war. Against the backdrop of this unfair civilization, their love is an urgent one, as urgent as their need to leave the country. Yet the process of leaving takes time and careful forgery. 

While Mina (Betalehem Asmamawe) smiles in every picture, her grandmother (Weyenshiet Belachew) keeps her face the same seemingly vacant expression.  Perhaps because she has had a hardened life or has forgotten joy. Later, however, she tells Mina that she was in love once. 

Mina has a closer relationship to her stern grandmother, but a tense one with her mother who abandoned them to live in Europe— they have to travel ways to call her. Meanwhile, Rata, Mina’s older brother— a returned veteran with a disability—is supportive of the war effort. In fact, he wishes to return to the frontlines. It is the grandmother and Rata who are quick to snuff out Mina’s outspokenness and show her that there are consequences to being “disrespectful” to authority. 

When Mina (Betalehem Asmamawe) spied the soldiers in the window during class, she does not hesitate to do what is right. 

The cast is led by the phenomenal Betalehem Asmamawe, making her acting debut. She carries this film on her shoulders as a young girl breaking through adolescence whilst simultaneously fighting the horrific system in the only way she can. Mina is brave, resilient, and passionate— emotions Asmamawe was able to evoke in every scene. 

Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian’s gut wrenching piece of work, based on her own life, daringly casts a shadow over the evil consequences of war, especially in its severity of stealing young boys unprepared for adult battles. She shows love and fear of Eli’s life through the eyes of Mina, his young love and his mother who has had a nightmare of his death. These two women make ultimate sacrifices in order to protect him only to be sabotaged. Winner of the TIFF Eurimages Adentia Award, the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival Jury Prize for Emerging Filmmaker, and a skew of honors for cinematographer Daniel Miller, Fig Tree deserves every last win and nomination. Hopefully this encourages Davidian to pen and direct more features, more stories from her poignant perspective. Her voice is unique and transformative, a pleasant evidence that there are emerging women creatives in Ethiopia determined to make an impact. 

Eli (Yohannes Musa) and Mina (Betalehem Asmamawe) are a calm before the storm. 

Fig Tree— a history lesson and love story all at once— is a must see and tissues will be needed. For Davidian's haunting story will leave audiences pining for a better, just world. 

30 Best Films Directed By Women of Color

Jessie Maple, a Black director and cinematographer, is one of the first African American directors to release a full-length feature film. 

September kicks off the official Directed By Women celebration— a much needed way of highlighting the problematic film industry which still presents white male directors as the privilege key holders to the filmmaking gate. Directed By Women purposely breaks away from the male domination to open up the closed box, showcasing the nuanced stories women behind the camera (and often times behind the pen) portray in their respective films. Time and time again, women directors have masterly proven to take down drama, romance, comedy, horror, and other genres with the “best” white filmmaker. They have the ability to add unique layers often undervalued by the gritty (sexist/racist) awards season.
Although a women’s film renaissance seems to be rising (or falling) every year, there remains an evidenced hard-working ethic that continues to emerge forward despite the stacked uneven odds.
Now while perusing several “Best Women Directed” lists today, some solid films by women of color were left behind. All women have a difficult path to getting films made, especially Black, Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern directors. Thus, this compiled list contains a number of theatrical releases, some limited showings, and few television films.

30. Kung Fu Panda by Jennifer Yuh Nelson

29. Just Another Girl on the I. R. T. by Leslie Harris

28. Wadjda by Haifaa Al Mansour

27. Night Catches Us by Tanya Hamilton

26. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Darnell Martin

25. Treeless Mountain by So Yong Kim

24. Eve’s Bayou by Kasi Lemmons

23. Ayiti Mon Amour by Guetty Felin

22. I Will Follow by Ava DuVernay

21. Belle by Amma Asante

20. In Between Days by So Yong Kim

19. Rafiki by Wanuri Kahiu

18. Long Life, Happiness, and Prosperity by Mina Shum

17. Bend it Like Beckham by Gurinder Chadha

16. The Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye

15. I Like It Like That by Darnell Martin

14. Mississippi Damned by Tina Mabry

13. Real Women Have Curves by Patricia Cardoso

12. Queen of Katwe by Mira Nair

11. Selma by Ava DuVernay

10. The Rider by Chloé Zhao

9. Losing Ground by Kathleen Collins

8. Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair

7. Love and Basketball by Gina Prince-Blythewood

6. Double Happiness by Mina Shum

5. Down on the Delta by Maya Angelou

4. Pariah by Dee Rees

3. I Am Not a Witch by Rungano Nyoni

2. Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay

1. Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash

'Black Girl' Bears A Heavy Mental Diagnosis for Black Women

Black Girl film poster.

Despite being released in 1960, Ousmane Sembène's award-winning Black Girl exposes the oppressive system set in the colonialist world today and should be required watching material for those invested in classic films revealing deeper provocation through a Black lens. Black Girl is one of the better offerings on the eclectic Criterion Channel streaming service, launched after Film Struck's unfortunate demise.

Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop) is a stylish, carefree young woman in Dakar seeking a job to support her family.

A picture of joy and passion (here in her boyfriend's bedroom), Djouana's disposition will shift in the employ.

In this compelling masterpiece, it is like a grand fairy tale that an excited Senegalesen woman named Diouana is singled out and chosen to care for a French woman's children. She has dreams for seeing the big, fancy city and becoming as sophisticated as the European magazine models (though quite frankly she is already utterly beautiful and charming). Anything must be more fascinating than the rural life of the impoverished village girl in Dakar. Yet the white Madame has entirely different intentions. At first polite and accommodating Madame gradually changes into a name-calling, slaphappy villain. And Madame's husband, Monsieur, though lenient and kind to Diouana, is silent to his wife's obnoxious behavior.

Diouana slowly becomes morose and solitary, staying in rooms too long, her sanity compromised for the benefit of a rich, bossy stranger. She obviously feels great humiliation from this unexpected betrayal, weighted down by the naivety of illusions. Diouana has fallen under the spell that these misguided illusions cast, often making Black women believe that her country, that where she comes from is less valid than the falsely advertised, materialistic propaganda.

That hungry desire for something better cannot always be found in predominantly white spaces.

Madame (Anne-Marie Jelinek) and Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop) with the letter from Diouana's mother.

Black Girl raises existing concerns about white women's damaging perception and desire to control Black women's bodies-- a whole ugly history entirely. They are not innocent flowers more like complicit allies-- abusing Black women's bodies in any way possible, especially considering their role in slavery (which was not simply just a demonstration of white man's physical, mentally, emotional power over Black bodies). For example, Madame continuously calls Diouana "lazy." Tired, overworked Diouana, the Madame's mule, is the one cooking, cleaning, and watching the madam's children. Under the guise of feminism, certain white women defensively keep hold of white patriarchal views and white supremacy because in both instances white women are the primary victor, the apple in the white man's eye. Recently, even a non-Black woman of color author called out a transit worker on social media for eating on public transit. In so many critical eyes, Black women are incapable of showing weakness (sleepiness, hunger, sadness, etc.) and that fabrication needs to end today. Madame ruthlessly enjoyed having authority over Diouana and utilized it every chance she could.

 

Diouana may have felt unsatisfied in Dakar. Perhaps something 

Mon Cherie is likely familiar to modern day publications Seventeen, Vogue, Glamour, etc., magazines that amp up the white women's beauty while making women of color find their own lacking.

Diouana is not allowed a moment's peace. The girl cannot do her own hair without Madame needing assistance.

Diouana's mental illness--often grossly questioned in the Black community-- affects encounters with her further abusive employer. Withdrawn and internalizing her sadness without a true outlet to release frustrations, Diouana's plight from humble beginning to bittersweet end presents a psychological parallel raising awareness on the harmful effects of a specific form of white abuse. She is grossly lied to, manipulated, paraded about, exhibited like a wild savage to the madam's rude dinner friends. An isolated Black woman in a foreign country without no friends and no resources has only the option of remaining in their employ or running away and being subjected to all sorts of other dangerous cruelties in the streets. 

 

Diouana calls Madame and Monsieur's house a prison, merely stating that that she has no free agency to exist in a role beyond a racialized, gender specific stigma. The bars are invisible. Yet her emotional frame of mind is broken, irreparable. 

 

In her room, a depressed Djouana admits a devastating defeat.

Black Girl is a short yet morally important film that stands the test of time. With a resonating "yesterday" feeling weaved into Diouana's heartbreaking story, it is groundbreaking work in its exploration of mental crisis caused by racism and the problematic scope of white women's lack of supporting Black women's interior and exterior being. Plus, Mbissine Thérèse Diop's underrated performance (as well as some of her own handmade clothes) is worth the sixty-minutes.

'Rafiki' Defies LGBTQIA Odds in Fiction and Reality

Rafiki film poster.

Rafiki is a modern forbidden love story told in a strict political society condoning unions between same sex couples. The heinous parable is introduced through a silent male figure. He is constantly abused by other men-- verbally and physically assaulted for existing as gay, illustrating also etched in miscontrued religious context. His story, seemingly small, is a significant integration into the lives of main characters, Zika and Kena.

Zika (Sheila Munyiva) has dreams of being a nurse, but it's Kena pushes her to become more.

Zika and Kena's fathers are running for the same political post. Zika works in her father's store and hangs out with womanizing Blackstar and his posse-- the bullies who abuse the gay man. Outgoing, carefree Kena is always out with two lively girls dancing and jiving, entirely girlish. Her big smiles and pastel rainbow hair seem an anomaly in their environment. Zika often watches Kena, intrigued yet shy.

Zika and Kena come together in a refreshing, natural way. Their mesmerizing camaraderie sewn eloquently-- an abandoned van for clandestine trysts, raw, unconfined joy at the carnival, glowing together at a nightclub.

Once the fallout happens, the families reactions are both expected and surprising. Yet the community's reaction is ugly and horrific.

Sheila Munyiva and Samantha Mutgatsia are dynamite partners portraying Zika and Kena. Their chemistry blooms beautifully from tentative stares to an affectionate friendship to passionate kisses. The actresses resonate a genuine tenderness for these characters and for each other, articulating vulnerabilities and demanding strengths. It is also a plus that Munyiva and Mutgatsia have distinctive skin tones and features lacking in black films. The camera poignantly focuses on Munyiva's eyes and lips and Mutgatsia's hair and smile with deliberate celebration and pride.

Kena (Samantha Mutgatsia) and Zika (Sheila Munyiva) have the most fun together. 

Other wonderful highlights include a great soundtrack (the opening sequence plays high colored credits while Muthoni Drummer Queen's Suzi Noma pumps in the background), cinematography has amazing shots of Kenya city life (and chapiti), and African print cloth duelly operating as fashion and home decor. Every stitch of the film comes together to deliver a special experience.

The church is no taboo to show love for Kena (Samantha Mutgatsia, right), but Zika (Sheila Munyiva, left) isn't ready.

Africa Academy Award winner (for From a Whisper) Wanuri Kahiu overcame a huge battle in obtaining Rafiki's rightful consideration for representing Kenya in the tight Oscar category Best Foreign Language Film. Kenya retains outdated opposition on same sex relationships and allowed government interference in this colossal case against Kahiu.

Activist art is imperative across the globe. Kenyan Wangechi Mutu, whose has a framed collage featured, creates pieces centering Afrofuturism and earth and runs Africa Now!-- an organization advocating for the continent's LGBTIA communities. South African Zanele Muholi and her team document harmed lesbians, telling their stories inside endless galleries and institutions. Meanwhile, Kahiu's great cinematic achievement expresses hostile turmoil, aggravated battery, and cruel separation in communities collectively despising and interfering on a love that does not look like their program.

The goddesses of Cannes: Sheila Munyiva (Zika), Rafiki writer/director Wanuri Kahiu, and Samantha Mutgatsia (Kena).

Rafiki is a gentle outstretched hand. On the fine, delicate lines of the palm, rests a beating heart yearning for human decency, acceptance, and respect. The viewer has no choice but to succumb to Zika and Kena's everlasting love. Forced bigoted trials and tribulations are no match against the strongest, most sacred emotions. No time or distance (or government interference) can defeat such an important narrative.