If you have done all it takes to get into a banquet thrown by VIPs who would prefer you don’t attend, would you head back home just before dinner is served, knowing there’s only hunger back at your apartment?
That is the debate at the heart of Fati’s Choice, which is bound to produce mixed reactions in African viewers, depending, perhaps, on which side of the class line they reside. It’s unlikely to produce too much of a mixed reaction among Western viewers, at least not with the horde who are resolutely against immigration based on the comments you find on certain websites. It’s hard to judge either side too harshly because there is some sense within each side’s socio-political context.
In plain terms, this brief documentary follows the titular lady who has returned from Europe after getting detained in Italy, following what surely must have been an arduous journey by sea and over desert. She had gotten lured by the riches available over there, leaving her children to join her husband, who had himself gotten stuck for a while in Libya. Things don’t go quite as well as she imagined and not long after, she decides to return to Ghana, where she sells candy. It is an item, we are told, that cannot produce enough profit to compare with European possibility.
But poverty isn’t the only problem dogging Fati upon her return. She must contend with her husband’s family, who have taken her children because her husband is displeased with her coming back. His anger only grows when she gives birth shortly after returning to Ghana. The pregnancy, he believes, would have allowed them to regularize their stay in Italy. Her decision to return means poverty for her and the kids and leaves him hanging precariously.
Throughout the documentary, friends and family are asked what they think of Fati’s decision to return to Ghana. It should come as no (or little) surprise that the unanimous sentiment is she should have stayed in Europe. The idea behind such an incredibly difficult and potentially deadly trek is the search for a better life that Fati, who is a remarkable narrator of her own story, has concluded her country can’t provide. So you see the point being made by the family. If, as Fati knows, today’s Ghana is pretty terrible for her and the future doesn’t look much better, why return from the European banquet? But Fati wanted to be with her kids, and she couldn’t provide for them while being detained in Italy. It’s a tricky position. But the picture deserves a little enlargement.
A few years ago, French President Macron gave a speech in Lagos in which he absolved present-day Europeans of blame for the sins of their ancestors. Africans need to stay in Africa, he said, as he announced a program that would give France an opportunity to see some of Africa’s biggest cultural figures. “My generation never experienced colonization… We need to move forward,” he declared.
The implication was clear that night in Lagos. France shouldn’t have to bear the burden for actions that still have repercussions today. And Africans can stage a big state-supported show in France if it would encourage more people to stay back in Africa. So the real tension in Fati’s Choice takes place off-screen. Onscreen, there is tension—that between Fati and her friends and family who, years after she came back, still seem to carry a grudge because of what has been denied them by her return: some prestige in the community: an opportunity to stop living from hand to mouth.
But this tension exists side by side with that of the larger world. Fati’s Choice would, perhaps, serve both sides of the global poverty line better if it did something unusual: what if its director, Fatimah Dadzie, showed the documentary, as it currently exists, to a predominantly Western audience and then asked each person watching what they think of Fati’s choice? Everyone knows the poor would rather partake of the feast thrown by the world’s VIPs. The really suspenseful question is this: what would the VIPs’ reaction be?
Director, Script: Fatimah Dadzie
Producers: Don Edkins, Tiny Mungwe, Hamid Yakub
Cinematographer: Yao Ladzekpo
Editor: Gloria Adotevi
Music: Tito Marshall Gomez
Production Company: 1082 Films
World Sales: Berenice Hahn
Language: English (with English subtitles)
Duration: 45 minutes