Cameroon, Ghana and France / 2018 / 89mins / Documentary / French

In 1964, following the death of her mother, 14-year-old Nana Banyina Horne becomes a mother figure to eight younger siblings. Years later, after living and teaching in America, Nana is chosen to be Queen Mother back in Ghana. As the film follows her on her journey home, we meet her sisters, family, and other members of the community, and we slowly perceive the both loving and suffocating ties and responsibilities that pull her back. On Nana’s journey, motherhood and sisterhood converge and collide, losses resurface, and cycles repeat, bringing to the fore questions of place and belonging, and the burdens of responsibility and sacrifice.

Jean-Marie Téno

Jean-Marie Téno, Africa’s preeminent documentary filmmaker, has been producing and directing films on the colonial and post-colonial history of Africa for over twenty years. Films by Jean-Marie have been honored at festivals worldwide. He has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence and has lectured at many universities. Jean-Marie was born in 1954 in Bandjoun, Cameroon. He studied audiovisual communication at the University of Valenciennes and worked as a film critic for Bwana Magazine and as editor-in-chief at France 3. In 1983, he directed his first short documentary Schubbah. In 1992, he made his documentary Africa, I Will Pluck You Clean on the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism in Cameroon. In 1996, he made Clando, which won the Audience Award at the 6th African Film Festival in Milan, Italy. Jean-Marie Teno is also a producer of his own films with Les Films du Raphia. From 2007 - 2008, he was a Visiting Artist at Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, and in 2009 - 2010 he was visiting Professor at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. He lives between France, Cameroon and the United States. Learn More