My Mama Na Ashawo is a paradoxical tale of parental love and neglect, the disadvantaged reality of the poor and illiterate.
Written by Brenda Ogbukaa Garuba and directed by Nwamaka Chikezie, My Mama Na Ashawo is a touching story of a young boy’s struggle to understand and present his mother’s profession, in a school assignment to a world that has instantaneously judged her amoral.
Born in a brothel, 13-year-old Tejiri (Anointed Augustine) faces a dilemma when a school assignment required his writing a composition about his mother, Martha’s (Tonia Chukwurah) profession. On the course of writing the assignment, he delves deeper to how his mother to the street, her adamancy that he gets an education and her dreams beyond the brothel.
The story is pathetic, like many of such narratives that has been told of some illiterate parents handing over their children to loan sharks to pay off their debts, or marrying them off early to the next not even highest bidder for the money.
One detail about this short film is main character’s wholesomeness. Contrary to some children who would be ashamed once there are laughed at or bullied about their parents, Tejiri sincerely didn’t see any reason not to tell anyone what his mother does for a living, sometimes even unsolicited. That did not change post his discovery of why his mother was a prostitute. His blind trust and love for his mother, knowing that whatever she is doing, she is doing for love of him, is admirable.
The film’s colour lends a sad and flashback-like effect that supports the first-person narrative choice. But this eventually proves problematic as it takes more work to pin down the flashbacks, and keep track of the plot. To illustrate, the short film starts with the protagonist reading out his assignment in class with “my mama na ashawo” all else that follows appears to be a couple more flashbacks adding to the backstory. She remained a prostitute all through the narration, only for the protagonist to read “she worked and worked till she commot for the job.” This is confusing. It is either she is still an ashawo, or was an ashawo.
There is also a lack of consistency with the brothel house depicted in the film, as it starts out as face-me-I-face-you bungalow in a flat area, but becomes a (a non-gated) face-me-I-face-you in a hilly area.
The inconsistencies notwithstanding, My Mama Na Ashawo highlights the importance of education, to provide enlightenment and information that could have led to Martha’s freedom from brothel. It is also creating awareness that more needs to be done, since the few trafficking non-governmental organizations around cannot get to all abused and trafficked persons. It falls on individuals, like the character Corper Nonso (Ray Adeka), and Iya Bose (Nana Kazaure), who standup for the voiceless in little ways that can be the one shining light at the end of a dreary day, that keeps them going.
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