A vital cinematic voice of the Black diaspora, British-Nigerian filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah has forged an eclectic cinematic vocabulary that spans documentary and genre spectacle, formal experimentation and bold political commentary. Her short work includes autobiographical explorations of racial and sexual identity (THE BODY BEAUTIFUL) as well as nonfiction studies of the conflicts between tradition and modernity that shape gender roles in Nigerian society (THE DESIRED NUMBER). And with her dystopian feature debut, WELCOME II THE TERRORDOME, Onwurah proved herself to be a visionary ahead of her time, becoming the first Black woman to direct a theatrically distributed British feature in the process.
This interview with director Ngozi Onwurah was recorded in 2020.
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1995 • United Kingdom
Starring Suzette Llewellyn, Saffron Burrows, Felix Joseph
Ngozi Onwurah’s radically ahead-of-its-time Afrofuturist vision WELCOME II THE TERRORDOME made history as the first theatrically distributed British feature directed by a Black woman. Neve...
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1988 • United Kingdom
Suffering the aggression of racial harassment, a young girl and her brother attempt to wash their skin white with scouring powder in this lyrical, starkly emotional testimony to the profound internalized effects of racism and the struggle for sel...
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1991 • United Kingdom
Starring Madge Onwurah, Brian Bovell, Maureen Douglass
This bold, stunning exploration of a white mother who undergoes a radical mastectomy and her Black daughter who embarks on a modeling career reveals the profound effects of body image and the...
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1993 • United Kingdom
Inspired by a poem by Maya Angelou, AND STILL I RISE explores images of Black women in the media, offering a searing critique of the myths and stereotypes surrounding their sexuality as well as an empowering counterview.
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1993 • United Kingdom
Ngozi Onwurah’s illuminating documentary follows two Nigerian women through their differing experiences of a traditional rite of passage. As part of an initiation ceremony known as Iria, young virgins spend five weeks in “fattening rooms,” wearin...
Directed by Ngozi Onwurah • 1995 • United Kingdom
This incisive documentary uses the Nigerian Ibu Eze ceremony—which celebrates women who have given birth to large numbers of children—to examine how family-planning issues often conflict with traditional values in a country whose infant and mater...
