The feature debut of Tanzanian American writer/director Ekwa Msangi, Farewell Amor, follows an immigrant family from Angola that reunites 17 years after husband and father Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) left for New York to work as a cab driver and establish a home for those he left behind. When he is finally able to bring over his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) to share his small Brooklyn apartment, expectations shatter as he realizes he is as alien to them as they are to their new adopted country.
Told in the style of Akira Kurosawa’s famous 1951 film Rashomon, this family drama unfolds repeatedly from the point of view of each character. Father, mother, and daughter all do what they can to reconnect, carefully navigating conflicts that arise surrounding familial love and duty under pressure. A recipient of multiple prestigious filmmaking fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Tribeca Institute, and the Sundance Institute, Msangi proves with this impressive first feature that she is a rising star, and definitely one to watch.
By Logan Del Fuego
Header image via IFC Films
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2021 print edition of BUST Magazine.
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