Mother of George

Adenike and Ayodele are a Nigerian couple living in Brooklyn. At their wedding everyone wishes them a son; he has been named already. But the years pass and no child comes. The pressure of family and community lands on Adenike; here what a woman is worth is measured by giving birth. The solution her mother-in-law proposes puts Adenike on a road she cannot tell anyone about. Andrew Dosunmu's film is known for the way the cinematographer Bradford Young uses colour: fabrics, yellows, reds and tight framing. The telling neither defends the tradition nor looks down on it; it just watches a woman caught between two sides. Danai Gurira plays Adenike and Isaach de Bankolé the husband. The silences do more work than the dialogue.