David Oyelowo and Danai Gurira Champion African Filmmaking at TIFF

Global African Hub is making waves at its first TIFF. As part of the inaugural TIFF: Market, Canex Creations (a subsidiary of Afreximbank’s Fund for Export Development in Africa led by Nigerian Osahon Akpata) which backs the Hub, has been doing its best to raise the visibility of African stories and African films, especially in North America. That mission was on display for the market screening of Muganga for buyers and a recruited audience late Friday night at the John W. H. Bassett Theatre.

Already successful in France, the film, whose full title is Muganga, the One Who Treats, stars acclaimed Ivorian-born French actor Isaach de Bankolé. It chronicles the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s extraordinary work and advocacy for women who have suffered brutal sexual violence as collateral damage from the never-ending wars in his native Democratic Republic of Congo largely driven by the global consumption of cobalt.

To bring increased awareness to the film in North America, David Oyelowo, who stars in the buzzy TIFF film Clarissa from Nigeria, and Black Panther’s Danai Gurira joined the post-screening Q&A with the film’s writer-director Marie-Hélène Roux and Dr. Mukwege (along with a French translator) moderated by Afua Hirsch.

“I’ve seen this film before, but it brings me to just such a place of, I don’t know, devastation and gratitude that it exists and amazement to know there are superheroes amongst us,” sais Gurira, who also wrote the Tony-nominated play Eclipsed about sexual violence against women in the Liberian war.

“When I saw that statistic of 80,000 women at the time when this film was made that you have performed surgeries on, I just can’t begin to quantify how transcendent a thing that is to do with your ability,” added Oyelowo, speaking to Dr. Mukwege directly.

Both Oyelowo, who co-owns the streamer Mansa, and Gurira contextualized what a film like Muganga means to African stories, African film and humanity overall.

“I’m so thankful for this film because it shows women,” stressed Gurira. “It gives space for their humanity and their voice and their fullness to be seen because the world seems structured to not see African women’s voices and humanity and complexity and personhood.”

Added Oyelowo: “I’m so glad it’s been acknowledged recently that the greatest sin, I think, against humanity in many ways, is what has been and continues to be done to the African continent in the theft of people from it, the theft of resources from it, the theft of personhood and culture. The reason I’m so determined to get these stories told is I truly believe that the way to break down prejudice is to see yourself reflected in a person that may be from a place that is not where you’re from.”