Me Broni Ba (My White Baby) (Ghana: 2009)

Director

Akosua Adoma Owusu

Credits

Produced by Obibini Pictures, LLC 
Directed & Produced by: Akosua Adoma Owusu 
Text/Story: Adwoa Adu-Gyamfi 
Cinematography: Akosua Adoma Owusu 
Editor: Romulo Alejandro & Akosua Adoma Owusu 
Additional Photography: Dustin Thompson and  Betzy Bromberg 
Production Sound: Caroline Jin Key 
Sound Design & Mix: Nathan Ruyle 
Location: Kumasi, Ghana

 

Synopsis

Me Broni Ba is a short film set in hair salon spaces of Kumasi, Ghana. Vignettes of Ghanian women and girls braiding the hair of their peers, as well as white baby dolls is accompanied by a voiceover narrative recounting the experience of a young Ghanian girl moving to a predominantly white town in the US. The girl revels at her new classmates' likeness to that of her dolls, bestowing additional meaning to the film's title.

The film uses documentary footage, slow motion images, and media and advertisement collages creating multi faceted portraits of Black womens' hair braiding practices in modern Ghana. The film cultivates a nuanced exploration of beauty standards from Ghana to the world at large, grappling with fraught issues of representation.