Events & Calendars Spring Arts Festival: Short Films by Akosua Adoma Owusu

Akosua Adoma Owusu, an American-born filmmaker of Ghanaian heritage, presents her award-winning films Kwaku Ananse (2013) and Me Broni Ba (2009) in the Keefe Campus Center Theater, followed by a brief discussion.

Owusu (born Jan. 1, 1984) is an AMAA award-winning American avant-garde filmmaker. Producers of Owusu's first feature film, Black Sunshine, won France’s ARTE International Prize Award at the 2013 Durban FilmMart. In 2013, The Huffington Post listed Owusu in “Black Artists: 30 Contemporary Art Makers Under 40 You Should Know.” Her film Kwaku Ananse won the 2013 Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Short Film and was included in the French Cesar Film Academy Golden Nights Panorama program of Best Short Films of the year, organized with support from UNESCO, a program that selects notable short films awarded in 2013.

Owusu's work explores what she terms the “triple consciousness” of the African immigrant in America, as contrasted with the “double consciousness” that she feels is experienced by African-Americans. Me Broni Ba, one of the films she will be showing, explores this concept using a striking mixture of cultural reference points: Oprah, Barbie dolls and the great contemporary soul band Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

This event is free and open to the public.