INWARD GAZING with Blitz “The Ambassador” Bazawule

Blitz “The Ambassador” Bazawule is a Filmmaker and Musician born in Ghana and based in New York. Blitz’s short films Native Sun (2012) and Diasporadical Trilogìa (2016) premiered at New Voices in Black Cinema and Blackstar Film Festival respectively. Blitz is also the founder of the Africa Film Society, an organization focused on the preservation of classic African films. As a composer and musician, Blitz has released 4 studio albums, Stereotype (2009), Native Sun (2011), Afropolitan Dreams (2014) and Diasporadical (2016). Blitz is also a TED Fellow and recipient of the Vilcek Prize.

Bazawule’s directorial debut, The Burial of Kojo digs deep.

It is unprecedented, as work which forces the Western world as we know it, to re-discover African film, to come over to the new edge of storytelling which is black, colourful and inspiring in its irreverence towards the linear. This journey demands intention, clarity and a “complete paradigm shift in representation and what we value” – as African people, Afro-descendants and citizens of the world combined – according to Director Blitz “The Ambassador” Bazawule.

The Burial Of Kojo had its Caribbean Premiere at the Opening Night of the Africa Film Festival in Trinidad and Tobago (May 2019). Prior to that, the film premiered at Urbanworld Film Festival presented by HBO in September 2018 and has been travelling: back home to Ghana – the genesis, then throughout the African diaspora: Brooklyn, Brazil, London.  

Could you tell us about the importance of storytelling and identity as you see it?

Blitz Bazawule: First of all, I think that narrative storytelling is the most important part of any identity or make up of a people.  If you fall and bump your head, and can’t remember who you are, someone has to come tell a story…. You can piece together yourself out of a story. The inverse is also true. If you don’t know your story, or others who seek to control your story seek to do you harm, it means that whatever  is told about you becomes self-fulfilling prophecy: it is who you become. That has been our problem as people of colour globally. Our story is one that we have not safeguarded, we have not made it a point to hold on to it, so it’s like we’ve bumped our heads and can’t remember who we are…

Without the story of how you got here, you are not you.

How important is African film for the Caribbean and the African Diaspora?

It’s absolutely critical. Historically, we are talking about a separation of people that was violent… it was very much the pulling of the umbilical cord.  With that came the lack of memory – intentional – and the entire process of erasing memory, which in itself was very violent. If you are in the diaspora, it’s actually a miracle that you survived, because it was not set up for any of us to survive… but it’s also a miracle that some of us remember anything.

I equated The Burial of Kojo with the act of triggering genetic memory.  As people of colour, no matter where we went, our ideas of oral storytelling remained.  Additionally, within our paradigm of thought, we share ideas of the mythical being real, ancestors who are still here, the fact that dreams are real to us…because of this, I know that a film like the Burial of Kojo is important in that it reminds us of our relationship to the continent.  This film is also a means of reminding each other – that there is a connection – it is a deep one – which goes beyond the surface.  And if we are more informed about that connection we would find a lot more commonality.

How is the Caribbean seen in contemporary Africa, based on your knowledge and personal experience?

It is essentially through the Arts, Sports. We don’t know much about how Trinidad or the Caribbean came to be, the racial makeup.  That said, Ghana for example has a leg up on other countries, because of our first President (Dr. Kwame Nkrumah ). He was conscious about the role of the diaspora in our liberation, and thoughtful about the Pan African idea. Some of the most brilliant Caribbean scholars came to the continent, George Padmore for example and they helped us fight colonization.

Ghana’s first President was also very intentional about it, but it has been a long time since the Pan African idea has been a central theme of the country.  

But, I would tell you something that is crazy, Lord Kitchener wrote one of the most important songs for Ghanaians.

It’s called “Birth of Ghana”, and every 6th March Independence Day Lord Kitchener’s song is sung by all Ghanaians!  No Ghanaian knows what he looks like, where he is from…so I think that the only thing that’s missing is intention. Intention whether it’s in curriculum, cultural events, activities…to create clear links between each other, where we learn about each other, our  shortcomings, what you have resolved and how…

I think that many of us have been Intentional in very ad hoc ways, for example I chose to have my film travel the African diaspora, which is why I wanted to be physically present for the Africa Film Festival here in Trinidad because I know what it would trigger in most Trinbagonians.  At the end of the day, we are all dealing with the same issues across the board, most of which are identity issues.

Your heroine / Shero in The Burial of Kojo is a young girl from Ghana. Was this deliberate and why?

That’s who I know how to center in my stories. My ideas of storytelling came from my grandmothers, stories that she told us when electricity went out… perhaps those stories about the little black girls were stories of  herself. I remember the children in her stories had the most amazing imaginations and intuition…a lot of which adults beat out of us, so by the time we grow up we don’t trust those things we trusted as kids, we learn to see the world in a certain way.

I also know how rare it is to center a little dark skinned girl in cinema in general, but especially in African cinema….where colorism is deeply ingrained.

My mother’s story as well was important. Anyone who grows up on the continent knows that women are the real heroes, women run it: in our personal lives, politically, in the households. It’s just by the time our stories make it to the world, the heroes have been changed up. But we know who has gone the extra mile to make all of this possible. So it would have been fictional for me to make that lead character a young boy, and pure fantasy to make it a white male – which strangely, is seen in most films made on the continent, there is a white saviour – it goes to show how far down in this rabbit hole we are.

Most of all, I knew I would be challenging a lot of norms: my heroine, her native tongue, speaking Twi…which most people would dissuade you about because “the world wouldn’t understand.” But I say, I grew up watching Kung Fu films, I never once had a problem reading, so why do  I assume that the world would have a problem reading what we have to say ? But again, I think it’s all part of the centering problem – that we, as people of colour have not come to terms with the fact that we are of equal value to the world.

I made a film that was positioned on its own pivot, and requires the world to come over, make a journey – for the first time in a long time. That journey has been worth it for many.

I always quote Toni Morrison which is my ethos, and every black child and person of colour needs to recite it every morning. She said: “I stood on the edge, claimed it as central, and forced the world to come over to me.”

As a visual artist, musician and filmmaker, are you telling the same stories or does one art form serve a specific purpose?

The only conscious thing is understanding which medium or means is best for a specific narrative.  From day one, my Art has been dedicated to the idea of representation, and so the mission is representation. That has never changed.  I’ve always found it absurd that of 1.2 BN people on the continent, another 600 M in diaspora, we have so little representation in public discourse, in the Arts, ideology. This will require deliberate action to rectify.

The film has been praised for its “magical” aesthetic quality.  Is this an extension of your own beliefs in what some call “magic and the supernatural”?

There is some of me, but it would be fallacy to say that I am responsible for the entire film. So much of how we made this film is leaving room for ancestors to do their work…which within a western paradigm makes no sense, nobody will give you money! (laughs)  But we know ancestors walk with us and are part of our daily lives. This is why the film even approaches the afterlife from an ancestor perspective and not ghost perspective which is usually depicted as spooky, something to be afraid of. Secondly, magic is not the adequate word, but rather magical realism. This film shows that it is time to re-invent new language that would enable us to discuss our work.

The Burial of Kojo has received phenomenal reviews across the world, from marketing strategy, to distribution as the first Ghanaian film on Netflix.  Did you expect all of this success? And what’s the secret?

The day we were done, we were sure that this was a gift to the world, because it did not exist.  So yes, I knew it because this film was a personal feat, not comparative and not competitive.

Fully aware of the African canon of film, storytelling, we knew that the work we were doing, would have contributed significantly to the canon of African storytelling.  The Burial of Kojo is probably the first film of its calibre, to be entirely written by, produced by,  financed, supported, distributed by African people and the diaspora. That has never happened! The success of this film goes to prove what is possible when we center around each other, and when we are intentional about who this work is for.

Now, on the secret: first, it is the gaze of the film.  Is it inward gazing or is it external gazing? We, for once were focused inward as African people. Not only were we intentional about narrative and photographic style, but it all had to feel familiar to people in Ghana – if not, we would have failed. That was the beginning.

The form of the story was very important for me as well – it is told exactly as my grandmother told stories, in a non-linear way…

Second, understanding that the Diaspora is your source. Everywhere we screened: Brooklyn, Brazil, London – we started receiving clear affirmations like  “I see myself, I recognize the storytelling”, all from the diasporic community.

Finally, perspective has to be right. We were clear about the steps in vetting our work. The continent got it, then the diaspora got it so we knew were ready for the world, and everything else was extra.  I think if you walk around with that clarity of intent, the world will see.  The Universe is wise.

---

The life and memory of Kojo – a young Ghanaian father, as told by his only daughter Esi, who one day, decides to save her father from himself.  The Burial of Kojo subjugates by its aesthetic quality, its relationship to time. It demands “total submission”: to (re)connect to a parallel reality, structured by the African paradigm of thought. In this reality,  linear narratives expand to the circular and cyclical. Dreams, fantasy and magic are nothing but intense, vivid reality. Luminous.

---

The Burial of Kojo is available on

Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81044496  (U.S, Canada, UK, Australia)

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theburialofkojoenglish (Worldwide)

Listen: Birth of Ghana, Lord Kitchener