The ‘Bantú Mama’ Team On The Dominican Republic’s Oscar Entry: “We Wanted To Make A Film That Represents Us”- Virtual Screening Series
tells the story of Emma , an everyday French woman of African descent whose life is thrown into turmoil when she is arrested for being a drug mule during a trip to the Caribbean. Escaping custody, Emma goes on the run, hiding out in a rough neighborhood with a family of streetwise kids whose gangster father rules the area from his prison cell.
Speaking at Deadline’s Virtual Screening Series, Herrera explained that the film, from Array Releasing, was intended as a personal journey of discovery. “Clarisse and I are partners in life,” he said, “and we wanted to do a film that represents us both and tell us a little bit about our own stories, me being an Afro-Caribbean and Clarisse being Afropean. [In the film] we are basically talking about our cultural encounters, because we wanted to write a movie that would represent us and that could honor our ancestors as well.”
Albrecht revealed that the writing process involved “a lot of conversations and brainstorming.” “The first draft was really bad,” she laughed. “Well, not bad, but it was the point we needed to get through in order to get to something way more simple.” This first “bad” draft was full of subplots, extra characters, twists and turns. “There were scenes that Ivan wanted to shoot, and scenes that I wanted to perform, but they were not really making sense.
As a result, who Emma really is, where she’s from, and the reasons for her entry into this risky criminal enterprise are all left tantalizingly vague. Said Albrecht, “We really wanted for everybody to assume —according to their own thoughts, or analysis, or judgment — why she did it. We really wanted to maintain this mystery, because [an explanation] would take you out of the story or leave you feeling less close to her.
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