Blog – The Witches of Gambaga – a documentary film by Yaba Badoe

Here’s an interview with Collective Eye, the new distributors of DVDs of The Witches of Gambaga in the USA

http://collectiveeye.org/spotlight/yaba-badoe.html?utm_source=Collective+Eye%2C+Inc.+Educational&utm_campaign=9169009fdd-April_2012_Newsletter4_17_2012&utm_medium=email

I was invited to show The Witches of Gambaga at a Women’s Things seminar in Orkney to celebrate International Women’s Day. I had a great time with my old school friend, now county archeoleogist  of Orkney, Julie Gibson, who organised the seminar. About 50 of us spent the day mulling over folk tales – From Goddess to Witch: the Declining Fortunes of Women in Orkney Folk Tradition, women magicians and shamans among the Vikings and then Orkney Witchcraft Trails of the 17th century.  A veritable feast of gender and justice over the ages! Below is a link to Radio Orkney’s feature on the seminar. It’s the second item in:

http://soundcloud.com/radio-orkney/tullimentan-march-2012

The screening of the Witches of Gambaga at the British Film Institute on Saturday afternoon was fantastic. The documentary played to a full house and ‘Delwande’, a film from Burkino Faso about a woman accused of witchcraft that followed the screening, made for a great programme and an excellent discussion afterwards. Thank you every one who came and made the afternoon such a success.

I arrived in Ghana late on Monday evening, in time to take part in the final day of the 6th Annual Real Life Documentary Festival in Accra on Tuesday. Festival director, Lydie Diakhate, invited me to give a Master class in documentary film making, which I did, using The Witches of Gambaga as a case study. Researching, directing and then completing a documentary film is all about building relationships: working with subjects, forging a team and then creating alliances, political and personal, to obtain funding. The film would never have been made without the incredible support and commitment of my co-producer, Amina Mama, and the women’s movement in Ghana – not to mention the many friends and NGOs, who in their various ways, contributed. The audience at the Maison Francaise at the University of Ghana, where the Masterclass took place, was too big to workshop ideas in pairs. There were about 70 students in the audience altogether. However, I was able to show clips from some of my favourite, award-winning documentaries: Pray The Devil Back to Hell, Fork Films’ amazing celebration of  the women’s peace movement in Liberia and Somewhere Special, directed and filmed by Darren Hercher, who also did the camera work on The Witches. I really enjoyed giving the Master class and the Q & A session with the students after the screening of The Witches of Gambaga, went well. Thank you, Lydie, for inviting me to take part in your festival. And warm congratulations to Leymah Gobwee, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Tawakul Karman of Yemen for  being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace today for your non-violent activism.

I’ve just heard that The Witches of Gambaga has been selected for the Rio International Film Festival (6th -11th October) the Reel Sisters Film Festival in New York (15 – 16th October) & Film Africa 2011,  in London this November.
It’s also been chosen to be part of the British Film Institute’s African Odyessy series and is penciled in for a screening in London on Saturday 21st January, 2012.
I’ll let you know the times and dates of the screenings as soon as I get the details

Check out Shannon Effinger’s interview with me at the New York African Film Festival:

http://soundcloud.com/societyhae/the-witches-of-gambaga

Shannon also wrote about ‘The Witches of Gambaga’ here:

http://www.societyhae.com/profiles/blogs/new-york-african-film-festival

Excellent news. The Witches of Gambaga has just been selected for screening as part of the official comeptition at the DMVIFF – an International Film Festival that caters for the visual arts in the D.C/Maryland and Virginia areas of the Unites States. The Festival runs from June 15 – 17 in Washington D.C. I’ll let you know as soon as we have a date for the screening. Until then, I’m off to Nassau in the Bahamas for a screening of the film at the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas on Thursday 26th May at 8pm. I’m really looking forward to it.

Great news! The Witches of Gambaga has just received the Audience Choice Award Honorable Mention from this year’s Davis Feminist Film Festival. Thank you to all those in the audience at UC Davis who engaged so powerfully with the film.

Just returned from a fabulous few days at CinemAfrica, a celebration of Africa films and documentaries in Stockholm. The Witches of Gambaga was screened twice to packed audiences. A great experience.

A 40 minute version of The Witches of Gambaga will be shown on GTV (Ghana National Televsion) on Friday night. Gifty Anti – a very well know Ghanaian broadcaster will be screening the documentary on her programme Standpoint at 8.15 on Friday March 4th.

Had a great launch of The Witches of Gambaga at the British Council in Accra this morning. For those weren’t able to catch it, I’ll be showing the documentary at Ashesi University College, North Labone, (Lecture hall 2 in Building 2) at 4.15pm on Thu 17th of February. Then again on Friday 18th February at 6pm at the University of Ghana at the Institute of African Studies, Nketia Lecture Hall.

The audience’s reaction was fascinating. The men were strangely silent, while many women talked about incidents in their lives when they had been accused of witchcraft. One woman, a scientist, was labelled a ‘witch’ after she gave birth to physically challenged child. The question is – now that the film has moved people – what do we do now? All suggestions appreciated…