Onyeka

Short (in post production)

12 min / Color / 1.5:1 / 5.1

As Onyeka prepares for her traditional Igbo bride price ceremony, she struggles to admit to her mother that she doesn’t feel comfortable with her fiance ‘paying’ for her. With aunties, cousins and children filtering through the house and the ceremony only minutes aways, Onyeka is thrust into the proceedings fighting against her surroundings as her once familiar family become distorted in her panic. When an apparition of her younger self guides her to the final ceremony, Onyeka finally gains the courage to advocate for herself as an adult— disrupting the ceremony by drinking wine meant for her husband-to-be. She announces her wishes to her mother and father who concede. Onyeka sits with her husband, not certain of the extended family’s reactions but content that she finally has control over her long-awaited day.