Filmmaker Zeinabu Irene Davis is fascinated with African folklore and its cinematic possibilities. She discovered the continent’s vast trove of tales, both oral and written, while studying in Kenya as part of her undergraduate education.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The menace in Davis’s latest work–a half-hour children’s film titled Mother of the River–is slavery. She decided on her subject three years ago while teaching a course in media literacy. “It was around the time of the miniseries Queen, based on Alex Haley’s biography of his grandmother,” Davis says. “And a little girl in the class said she’d like to live in that time period. Everything was so romantic to her. Obviously she didn’t understand what slavery was all about.”
In Mother of the River Davis and her Haitian-born husband, Marc Chery, have transplanted a well-known Haitian tale to a South Carolina plantation in the 1850s. “Dofimae, the protagonist, is a young slave girl who one day wanders into the woods and meets a mysterious woman who calls herself Mother of the River,” Davis explains. The woman gives Dofimae two eggs–magical, potent symbols of Congolese origin that Davis says “represent fertility and other possibilities. In the south, black people used to practice rituals using eggs to bless themselves and put a hex on their enemies.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Matthew Gilson.
