The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2016

Nakom

Berlin Film Festival 2016: Nakom | Review
22 February 2016
The editorial unit
Avatar
The editorial unit
22 February 2016

Movie and show review

The editorial unit

Nakom

★★★★★

Links

TwitterFacebookWebsite

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2016

11th to 21st February 2016

Directors Kelly Daniela Norris and TW Pittman are not the sort of filmmakers who make things easy on themselves. Having already shot one film clandestinely in Cuba (2013’s Austin Film Festival award-winner Sombras de Azul, which Norris directed and Pittman produced), the two women hit upon the idea of making their collaborative feature debut in a rural Ghanaian village without electricity, with dialogue almost entirely in a language without written form. Their decisions could not have paid off better, as the result is quite simply a revelation in which every aspect shines.

In Nakom, young medical student Iddrisu (Jacob Ayanaba) is obliged to put his life and schooling in bustling Kumasi on hold after his wayward farmer father dies in a motorcycle accident. He travels to his rural hometown, Nakom, where he reluctantly finds himself increasingly taking over his father’s role as he sets right his various wrongs. Despite the pull of his urban lifestyle and nascent medical career (which he hopes will allow him to leave Ghana entirely), he becomes increasingly essential to his family and to Nakom more widely.

The resulting story arc is simultaneously surprising and inevitable as it heads towards its powerful conclusion. Whilst far from ostentatious, it is nevertheless shot through with telling moments possessed of utter truthfulness – simple on the surface, yet they stick in the memory. In one instance, Iddrisu takes his younger cousin to hospital, where a young nursing assistant clumsily attempts to take a blood sample. Looking at her arm, he declares that this cannot be done, leading Iddrisu to carefully guide him to a nearby vein. His cousin declares that Iddrisu knows everything, to which he humbly responds “No, I just know more than that boy.”

But Ayanaba is only the most prominent member of a terrific ensemble cast of non-professional actors, all of whom convey an unwavering sense of realism throughout. As explained by the directors, their verisimilitude owed much to the fact that the nature of the Kusaal language required each cast member to learn their lines orally from co-screenwriter and casting director Isaac Adakudugu, through which process they crafted the dialogue to suit individual personalities and speech patterns. Add to this an incisive and unobtrusive directing style focused squarely on characterisation, and a remarkable score by Senegalese musician Daby Balde, and Nakom leaves one impatient to follow wherever Norris and Pittman’s collaborations take them next.

★★★★★

Marc David Jacobs

Nakom does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more of our reviews and interviews from the festival here.

For further information about Berlin Film Festival 2016 visit here.

Watch the trailer for Nakom here:

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Related Itemsreview

More in Berlinale

Eeb Allay Ooo! interview with Prateek Vats

Oliver Johnston
Read More

My Little Sister: An interview with Nina Hoss, Marthe Keller and the directors

Joseph Owen
Read More

“We’re able to have fun without being locked into our mobile phones”: An interview with Delete History directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern

Oliver Johnston
Read More

Irradiated (Irradiés)

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

There Is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Berlin Film Festival 2020: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

The editorial unit
Read More

There Is No Evil press conference: Backing Mohammad Rasoulof and the subjectivity of cinema

Oliver Johnston
Read More

Police (Night Shift) press conference with Anne Fontaine, Virginie Efira and Omar Sy

Oliver Johnston
Read More

Riz Ahmed and Bassam Tariq on Mogul Mowgli and the challenge of representing your own culture

Oliver Johnston
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

The editorial unit

Nakom

★★★★★

Links

TwitterFacebookWebsite

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2016

11th to 21st February 2016

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • The White Tiger
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • We Ask These Questions of Everybody: An interview with Amble Skuse and Toria Banks
    Theatre
  • Start the year right with these eco-friendly vegan and vegetarian food deliveries
    Food & Drinks
  • Hello Cosmos – Dream Harder
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • 23 Walks
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Live Lab at The Yard Theatre: An interview with associate director Cheryl Gallagher
    Theatre
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • We Ask These Questions of Everybody: An interview with Amble Skuse and Toria Banks
    Theatre
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Undercover at Morpheus Show Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Lantern Sense autumn/winter 2016 collection catwalk show | LFW
Lantern Sense autumn/winter 2016 show backstage | LFW