On June 20, U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo of Dorchester, a Zimbabwe American poet, educator, and mental health advocate with deep ties to the African country of her forbearers, made her debut as a film director at the Roxbury International Film Festival (RIFF) with her short film, “Reclamation: This is My Country, This is My Land.”
In the past, Mhlaba-Adebo has participated in the festival, which features events at venues in Roxbury and across Boston, as a performer, wardrobe stylist, cultural consultant, and speaker, but last month she took her first turn behind the camera.
Her five-minute feature, filmed in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, explores identity, grief, and ancestral connection while tracing her journey through land, memory, and healing.
“I didn’t plan on directing the film at all, honestly, but there were some significant things that have happened in my life,” said Mhlaba-Adebo. “My mom passed away in Zimbabwe during the pandemic in 2020, and because of closed borders, I couldn’t be there to say goodby. Two years later, my stepfather passed away, and I wasn’t able to be there for his funeral.”
Last year, while “swirling around in grief and gratitude,” she searched for a way to process the incredible loss that she had experienced.
“I was invited to perform, to do poetry, and the theme was around how we sort of connect to land and colonialism and its impact on our lives,” Mhlaba-Adebo said in an interview with The Reporter. “I wanted to present the work in a different medium than which people know me for. A lot of people know me for my performance art, my spoken word, my sort of embodiment of words and sound. I wanted to do something different.”
That something different blossomed into her short film capturing her trip to Zimbabwe, where she honored her parents and navigated diasporic longing and belonging.
“I went home to Zimbabwe to lay my parents to rest, to see where they lay, and I was overcome with grief, but I documented the land and just my experience being on the land now that my earth is gone, sort of speak,” said Mhlaba-Adebo. “It’s through those archival and personal videos and meditations that I just sort of stitched together the memories of my mom in particular, who I was very, very close to.”
She added: “It became something, and I showed a couple of friends who are filmmakers; they really encouraged me to present the work and see what happens, and that’s what I did.”
“Reclamation: This is My Country, This is My Land” is part of a larger body of work called Roots and Revelations. The multi-modal presentation explores land, lineage, and Black womanhood through poetry, song, archival research, and visual art.
The feature is a combination of archival footage that Mhlaba-Adebo took the last time she was in Zimbabwe with her mother, circa 2016-2017, and footage from her visit home to see her parents’ graves for the first time.
“When you’re creating, you don’t really know what people are going to resonate with,” she said. “When I was creating it, I was initially creating it as my way of processing. I wasn’t thinking about an audience, I wasn’t thinking about what category it was going to fit. I was just thinking about how can I translate what I am feeling in some kind of way.”
She added: “When I shared it with my friends, this is when they said it was very moving and thought I should share it with more people, and that’s why it’s in the festival.”
Mhlaba-Adebo credits her success to her supportive husband and son and RIFF directors Lisa and Alison Simmons.
“They provide an avenue for not only local but international African and black and brown artists to really share their stories in all the complexity that it is,” Mhlaba-Adebo said. “For me a someone who is doing experimental filmmaking and as someone who saddles two contents, Africa and America, I really appreciate the opportunity to be in dialogue and collaboration with other filmmakers.
“We need to support places and spaces that do that. In this time, it is so important.”
