Categories: Entertainment

Albino Film ‘White Shadow’ Debuts in U.K.

This week, “White Shadow,” a fictional film about being albino in Tanzania, was released in the U.K. An official Sundance Film Festival selection, “White Shadow” is being heralded as an important and timely contribution to both film and the growing awareness about the deadly challenges albinos face in the East African nation.

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While “White Shadow” was initially released in 2013, it has continued to gain traction and the notice of the most-prestigious film festivals and organizations around the world.

Featuring Hamisi Bazili as the main character “Alias,” the film, which is directed by Noaz Deshe, offers a complex lens in to the life of a boy who is forced to go on the run, after witch doctors attempt to harvest his organs.

Watch the trailer of “White Shadow” here:

The plight of albinos in Tanzania has been grabbing international headlines due to the surge of murders that have occurred since last year.

Most recently, Face2Face Africa reported on the 4-year-old Pendo Emmanuelle Nundi who was kidnapped late December.

She still hasn’t been located.

The kidnapping moved authorities to institute a witch doctor ban, since witch doctors are reportedly responsible for paying up to $75,000 for albino body parts.

The ban didn’t stop 1-year-old Yohana Bahati from also being kidnapped and mutilated last month, though.

As Face2Face Africa previously reported:

Bahati, who was albino, was reportedly snatched from his mother’s residence on Sunday.

This week, officials found Bahati’s mutilated body just a few miles from his home in the North.

All of his limbs were hacked off with a machete.

By March, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete tackled the morbid issue in his monthly address, saying, in part, “I’m shocked and saddened at the sudden upsurge in these macabre killings.

“It is a false belief that if someone has the body part of a person with albinism, this will bring success in business, fishing and mining activities. This is what has been fueling this ongoing evil.”

President Kikwete also made sure to declare that he would do everything possible to “rid our nation of this shame.”

Consequently, just last week, authorities arrested 260 witch doctors, traditional healers, and soothsayers.

Abena Agyeman-Fisher

Abena Agyeman-Fisher is the Editor-in-Chief of Face2Face Africa. Most recently, she worked for Interactive One as the Senior Editor of NewsOne, she worked for AOL as the News Programming Manager of Black Voices, which later became HuffPo Black Voices, and for the New York Times Company as an Associate Health Editor. Abena, a Spelman College graduate, has been published in Al Jazeera, the Daily Beast, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, the Grio, BlackVoices, West Orange Patch, About.com, the Source, Vibe, Vibe Vixen, Jane, and Upscale Magazines. She has interviewed top celebrities, icons, and politicians, such as First Lady Michelle Obama, Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, Civil Rights activist and diplomat Andrew Young, comedian Bill Cosby, Grammy Award-winning singer Jill Scott, actress and singer Queen Latifah, Olympic Gold winner Cullen Jones, international supermodel Alek Wek, and five-division world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather. Most recently, she served as the First Lady’s press reporter during President Barack Obama’s U.S.-Africa Summit, Young African Leaders Institute event, and the 2013 presidential trip to Senegal, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Tanzania. Abena is also a 2015 International Women's Media Foundation Africa Great Lakes Fellow, where she reported on women candidates and Chinese sweatshops in Tanzania for CNN and Refinery29.