Drexciya
Synopsis
Set in an abandoned Olympic-sized swimming pool in Accra, Ghana, Drexciya draws on the Afrofuturist myth of an underwater subcontinent formed by the unborn children of African women thrown overboard during the Transatlantic slave trade. Filmed at the once-glamorous Riviera Beach Club, the work transforms the pool into a site of memory, myth, and submerged history.
Credits
Director / Producer: Akosua Adoma Owusu
Concept: Gerald Donald, James Stinson, Akosua Adoma Owusu
Cinematography: Dustin Thompson, Akosua Adoma Owusu
Editor: Dustin Thompson
Music: John Hawk, Gordon Kurowski
Sound Design: Nathan Ruyle
Collections
• Whitney Museum of American Art
Awards & Recognition
• Best Experimental Film — Guanajuato International Film Festival
• Jury’s Citation Prize — Black Maria Film Festival
• Special Jury Mention — Tarifa African Film Festival
• Top 10 African Films of 2011 — Africa Is A Country
Selected Screenings
• International Film Festival Rotterdam
• TIFF Bell Lightbox
• Studio Museum in Harlem
• Anthology Film Archives
• ICA London
• Athens International Film & Video Festival
• Rencontres Internationales Paris / Berlin / Madrid
• Andy Warhol Museum — Counterbalance: Redefining the Archive
• Henry Art Gallery — Drive-In at On the Boards
• Detroit Institute of the Arts
Selected writing
• Film Threat review
• Tënk Canada
"A portrait of the abandoned swimming pool of a ruined hotel in Ghana, the visuals document the uses people put to failed capitalist fantasies while also exploring the relationship of the cinematic and how consciousness “intends” its object. The title's allusion to the myth of an underwater kingdom of the children thrown from slave ships creates a bond between the endurance of the Ghanian people and counterhistorical resistance against the legacy of slavery." — Guanajuato International Film Festival