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Yaba Badoe. The Witches of Gambaga. 2010. Ghana/U.K. English and local languages, with English subtitles. 55 minutes. The Collective Eye. $250.00.
This film, which won a second prize in the documentary category at FESPACO 2011, explores the tribulations and, quite literally, the trials of women who, scapegoated and stigmatized as witches, even by family members, are exiled to a camp in Gambaga, Northern Ghana. According to lore, the camp was established in the nineteenth century as a sanctuary for a suspected witch rescued from imminent execution by a kindly imam. The film opens with the ordeals of Amina Wumbala, a widow, whose brother died in his sleep following an altercation. Declared a witch by the community, she was severely beaten, forced across a river, left for dead at its banks, and eventually found her way to Gambaga. Other residents have lived in the camp for varying periods of time and as a result of various circumstances, including Magazia Hawa, a once famous praise-singer, for more than twenty-five years; Alima and Zenabo, twenty years; and Agruba, ten years. Salmata, condemned with her daughter, had contemplated suicide, whereas Zenabo 's mother, also accused of witchcraft, had followed her daughter to the camp to help...