The film "Borga" tells the story of a Ghanaian migrant who wants to make it big in Europe. But the reality of his new life in Germany largely shatters those dreams.
'Borga' was made with a Ghanaian audience in mindImage: Bastian Schneider
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Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
From Nollywood to Netflix, these contemporary African directors are shaking up the world of film and TV with bold new narratives and aesthetics.
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Tsitsi Dangarembga
Dangarembga is not only a filmmaker but also successfully writes novels and screenplays, including for the film 1993 "Neria" that went on to become the most-watched film in Zimbabwe. In 2020, Dangarembga was arrested in Harare at a protest against government corruption and still faces trial a year later.
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Wanuri Kahiu
Born in Nairobi in 1980, the director had a global cinema success with her 2018 film "Rafiki." The first Kenyan film shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it portrays a love affair between two young Kenyan women and was banned in her home country. Kahui is now off to Hollywood, where she will direct "The Thing about Jellyfish," based on the acclaimed novel by Ali Benjamin.
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Kemi Adetiba
The Nigerian filmmaker, who also makes television series and music videos, is a big name in Nollywood — which is what people call Nigerian cinema, the second most productive in the world after Indian film. Commercially, Adetiba's feature films are hugely successful. She is producing her next film, a sequel to her blockbuster "King of Boys," exclusively for Netflix.
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Kunle Afolayan
The Nigerian director is one of the most important representatives of the new Nigerian cinema ("New Nollywood"), which is characterized by narrative complexity, a new aesthetic — and a much bigger budget. Afolayan's thriller "The Figurine — Araromire" (2009), one of Nigeria's most commercially successful films, is considered to have launched the movement.
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Abderrahmane Sissako
Sissako's films deal with topics including globalization, terrorism and exile. Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, the film director and producer is considered one of the best-known filmmakers from sub-Saharan Africa. His 2014 film "Timbuktu" was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and won several prizes at France's Cesar Awards as well as at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Philippe Lacote
The film director from the Ivory Coast most recently premiered "La Nuit des Roies" (2020) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film, reminiscent of the stories from the "One Thousand and One Nights" Arabian folk takes, tells the story of convicted criminal named Zama who becomes a convincing storyteller in order to survive at La Maca prison in the Ivory Coast capital, Abidjan.
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Macherie Ekwa Bahango
Promising new talent: The 27-year-old director from the Democratic Republic of Congo saw her film "Maki'La" debut at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival. The young self-taught director spent three years working on her first feature film, which is the story of a group of street children in Kinshasa. The film won top prize at the Ecrans Noirs African film festival in Cameroon.
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Moussa Toure
Moussa Toure is a Senegalese film director, producer and screenwriter and has long been a major figure in African cinema. His feature films and documentaries are often political. Toure describes his 2012 film "La Pirogue," which tells the story of refugees' journey by boat from Africa to Europe, as a "slap in the face of the Senegalese government."
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Following the success of Queen Sono, which became the first African production to be screened on Netflix last year, feature films that portray contemporary African culture and experiences are also making their mark internationally. Among them is German-Ghanaian migrant drama Borga, which recently won multiple awards at the 42nd Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival, including Best Feature Film and Socially Relevant Film.
The film's title is taken from the Ghanaian word "Borga," which describes people who have moved abroad to make money — with the implied expectation of becoming a success.
Kojo, played by German-Ghanaian actor Eugene Boateng, is one such migrant, a Ghanaian who moves to the German city of Mannheim with the hope of making his fortune. But Borga highlights the gap between dream and reality. Kojo manages to only scrape through in Germany by getting involved in an illegal business — his only chance to make a living, and to be seen as a "Borga" success back in Ghana.
Actor Eugene Boateng plays KojoImage: Bastian Schneider
Borga follows on from another film that reflects on the African immigrant experience, the 2020 Berlinale competition entry Berlin Alexanderplatz, which follows the struggles of a refugee from Guinea-Bissau in Germany. Both films explore the integrated themes of globalization, social inequality and migration in the 21st century.
Empowerment rather than victimhood
Opening in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, Borga initially employs a documentary-like lens to portray Kojo’s early struggle against adversity. We see the young protagonist scavenging for scrap metal on a garbage dump while growing up in Agbogbloshie, one of the poorest suburbs of Accra.
Amid the despair comes hope, dreams of escape from destitution that ultimately drive Kojo away from his home.
His quest to seek riches abroad and receive recognition from his family is the core of the film, says German director York-Fabian Raabe, whose debut feature also won the Audience Award at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival.
Raabe stresses, however, that the movie is not intended to be yet another example of "victim porn," but rather focuses on empowerment.
'Very clearly made for Ghana'
Raabe spent five years writing the Borga screenplay for his first foray into fictional feature filmmaking. To ensure authenticity, Ghanaian consultants and creatives worked with Raabe from the beginning of the project.
Director York-Fabian Raabe's collaborated with Ghanaian filmmakers from the outset Image: Bastian Schneider
The actors speak their native language, mainly Twi, throughout a film that is subtitled and contains only a few moments of spoken German.
"The unique thing about an actor slipping into his own tongue is that he gets to connect with what he is playing and what he is doing in a different way. The language itself is the key to more intimacy," said Raabe.
"The film is not only made for the Western world. It is very, very clearly made for Ghana," he added.
Working with renowned Ghanaian actors like Adjetey Anang, who plays Kojo's father, was also a rewarding experience for lead actor Eugene Boateng.
"This was such a special and emotional project for the Ghanaians," he said. "They all felt so connected to the story, and felt like it was their own story too."
The film was shot on location in Accra, GhanaImage: Bastian Schneider
Pressure to succeed
Born in Germany to Ghanaian parents, Boateng well knows the kind of expectations that a "Borga" faces in real life. Whenever he visits Ghana, people shout the word when they see him walking on the street.
"All the Ghanaians I know, all my family members, we have this pressure to play 'Borga' as soon as we are in Ghana," he says, explaining that the word actually is derived from the name of the German city of Hamburg.
"When you come to Ghana, you spend a lot of money and show that you're doing well in Germany or in the Western world," he said. "But most of the 'Borgas' are actually not doing so well. They don't have the jobs here that they actually want to do. They save for several years and then when they are visiting in Ghana, they spend all their money within a few weeks."
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Great expectations ... and lies
Borga especially reflects on this double life. When Kojo arrives in Mannheim, he sets out to find his buddy Nabil's uncle, who is supposedly a "Borga" himself. Kojo only has one photo of him, in which the uncle is seen posing in front of a swanky car and mansion, draped in thick jewelry.
Kojo's new-found affluence is only for showImage: Dennis Krahwinkel
When Kojo finds him, the uncle reveals the secret to his apparent success: His friend takes and edits photos of him posing in front of cars, villas, yachts and even helicopters for the prize of €50. Soon realizing the great expectations on these fellow expats, Kojo inevitably creates his own intricate web of falsehoods and lies.
The film could play a role in raising awareness about the pressure that "Borgas" face when it finally premieres in Ghana, which had been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having received so much critical praise in Germany, there is a great sense of anticipation for the film in Ghana, according to York-Fabian Raabe.
He hopes that in the second quarter of 2021 at the latest, some of the Borga cast and crew will be able to travel to Ghana and share the film with the people for whom it was made.
This article has been translated from German.
Cicely Tyson: A life in pictures
Two Emmys, a Tony, an honorary Oscar and the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the iconic Cicely Tyson was a distinguished film, stage and TV actress much admired for her portrayal of resilient African American women.
Born on December 19, 1924 in New York City as the youngest of three children to immigrants from the Caribbean island of Nevis, Cicely Tyson started off her career as a fashion model before turning to acting. Her career on stage and screen ended up spanning seven decades. "Just As I Am" — Tyson's first memoir — was published just days before her death at age 96 on January 28, 2021.
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Portrayed women with strength, courage
The 1972 film "Sounder" netted Tyson an Oscar nomination for best actress. She told the American Film Institute what had intrigued her about the role of Rebecca, the Depression-era wife of a Louisiana sharecropper: "Her strength, her courage, her love for her family, her knowledge that no matter how difficult things were, they were going to get better."
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Groundbreaking miniseries
Tyson starred in numerous TV series and films, including in the landmark 1977 miniseries "Roots" with poet Maya Angelou. Based on American author Alex Haley's bestseller of the same name, Tyson played the mother of a boy captured by slave traders. She was nominated for an Emmy for the role.
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Rights and equality
A year, later, Tyson portrayed Coretta Scott King in the TV miniseries "King" about the life of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. His wife, Coretta, was active in the women's movement and also an advocate for African American equality. This photo was taken on set in Macon, Georgia.
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1960s revisited
In 2011, Tyson played a maid working for a white family in the movie "The Help." The hit film looked at how the unspoken code of rules and behavior in a southern town in the early 1960s changed as a result of an unlikely friendship. Decades earlier, the iconic actress received two Emmys for her role as former slave in the 1974 TV drama "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman."
After three decades away from the stage, Tyson won a Tony Award for best actress for her portrayal of Carrie Watts in the 2013 Broadway revival of the play "The Trip to Bountiful." Tyson, 88 years old at the time, said in her acceptance speech that she had "burning desire to do just one more — one more great role. I didn't want to be greedy. I just wanted one more."
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Presidential honor
Former President Barack Obama awarded Tyson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, at a ceremony at the White House in 2016. "Cicely's convictions and grace have helped for us to see the dignity of every single beautiful memory of the American family," said Obama.
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An Oscar at last
Tyson, first nominated for an Oscar in 1972, received an honorary Oscar statuette in November 2018. "This is the culmination of all those years of have and have-not," she told the crowd in her acceptance speech.
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A true legend
"Rest in power," "A true legend" and "This one hurts": Condolences and memories poured in after the news of Tyson's death broke on Thursday. "Cicely decided early on that her work as an actor would be more than a job. She used her career to illuminate the humanity of Black people... The roles she played reflected her values; she never compromised," wrote TV mogul Oprah Winfrey on Instagram.
