Postcolonial Trauma, Memory and Care in Bodunrin B. Sasore’s Breath of Life

New Nollywood is offering aesthetically driven strategies of reading the African colonial past and its traumatic and complex implication in the postcolonial present and future. Postcolonial film has become a mode of memorializing the paradigm-shattering colonial experience and its persistent legacy...

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Published in:Research in African literatures Vol. 55; no. 3; pp. 126 - 143
Main Author: Isiguzo, Chikwurah Destiny
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Bloomington Indiana University Press 22.09.2025
Subjects:
African cinema
African movies
Assassinations & assassination attempts
Collective memory
Colonialism
Criticism and interpretation
Experience
Filmmakers
Life
Memory
Motion picture directors & producers
Motion pictures
Motion pictures, African
Movie directors
Murders & murder attempts
Portrayals
Postcolonialism
Psychic trauma
Rape
Sasore, Bodunrin
Trauma
Trauma (Psychology)
Victims
Violence
Nigeria
Ghana
ISSN:0034-5210, 1527-2044, 1527-2044
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Abstract New Nollywood is offering aesthetically driven strategies of reading the African colonial past and its traumatic and complex implication in the postcolonial present and future. Postcolonial film has become a mode of memorializing the paradigm-shattering colonial experience and its persistent legacy on individuals and communities. The present study therefore explicates how B. B. Sasore’s film, Breath of Life (2023), rethinks and reimagines colonial experience and impact by focusing on the traumatic experience of individual and collective victims of colonial violence. Following conceptualizations of trauma, memory, and care, this study examines how Breath of Life (2023), through the depiction of memory, connects a traumatic colonial past to the present. The study argues that care can mollify traumatic individual and collective experiences.
AbstractList New Nollywood is offering aesthetically driven strategies of reading the African colonial past and its traumatic and complex implication in the postcolonial present and future. Postcolonial film has become a mode of memorializing the paradigm-shattering colonial experience and its persistent legacy on individuals and communities. The present study therefore explicates how B. B. Sasore's film, Breath of Life (2023), rethinks and reimagines colonial experience and impact by focusing on the traumatic experience of individual and collective victims of colonial violence. Following conceptualizations of trauma, memory, and care, this study examines how Breath of Life (2023), through the depiction of memory, connects a traumatic colonial past to the present. The study argues that care can mollify traumatic individual and collective experiences.
Audience Academic
Author Isiguzo, Chikwurah Destiny
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Sasore, Bodunrin Criticism and interpretation
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SubjectTerms African cinema
African movies
Assassinations & assassination attempts
Collective memory
Colonialism
Criticism and interpretation
Experience
Filmmakers
Life
Memory
Motion picture directors & producers
Motion pictures
Motion pictures, African
Movie directors
Murders & murder attempts
Portrayals
Postcolonialism
Psychic trauma
Rape
Sasore, Bodunrin
Trauma
Trauma (Psychology)
Victims
Violence
Title Postcolonial Trauma, Memory and Care in Bodunrin B. Sasore’s Breath of Life
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