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The Education of Auma Obama

The Education of Auma Obama

A feature documentary on the life and times of Auma Obama told from her homestead in Kenya during the run up to the 2008 US Presidential elections that brought her brother Barack Obama to power.

World Premiere at TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival 2011
Africa Movie Academy Award Best Diaspora Documentary 2012
Festival Founders’ Award Best Documentary Panafrican Filmfestival Los Angeles 2012
Audience Choice Award Africa International Filmfestival Lagos 2011

Written, directed & edited by: Branwen Okpako
Director of Photography: Kolja Brandt
Music: Jean-Paul Bourelly 
Sound: Ulla Kösterke, Jürgen Schönhoff, Patrick Veigel
Sound Design: Kuen-Il Song
Re-Recording Mixer: Ansgar Frerich
Producers: Katrin Springer, Volker Ullrich
Commissioning Editor: Jörg Schneider

produced by Filmkantine UG in coproduction with ZDF/Das kleine Fernsehspiel and in cooperation with Branwen Okpako supported by Rombach & Partner and Pictorion das werk

documentary, 2011, HD, 79 mins

shot on location in Kenya, England, Germany

with
Auma Obama, Kezia Obama, Marsat Osumba Onyango, Mama Sarah Obama, Elke Brenstein, Gloria Hagberg, Paula Schramm, Lois Wambui Thuo, Njeri Karago, Prof. Wierlacher, Jai Gonzales, Alfons L. Ims, Wanjiru Kinyanjui and others

Branwen Okpako’s „The Education of Auma Obama“ is a captivating and intimate

portrait of the U.S. president’s older half-sister, who embodies a post-colonial,

feminist identity. (…) An academic overachiever, she studied linguistics and contemporary dance in Heidelberg, Germany, before enrolling in film school in Berlin, where she met Nigerian-born director Okpako in the nineties. After living in the United Kingdom for a short period, Auma Obama eventually moved back to Kenya to mentor a young generation of community activists, social workers and other ambitious young men and women who lacked her privileged education and training, but were nonetheless determined to make a positive contribution to their society. (Rasha Salti, Programmer Toronto Int. Filmfestival September 2011)

One branch of President Obama’s fascinating family tree reveals its own compelling story in Branwen Okpako’s „The Education of Auma Obama“. Born of the same father but raised by a different mother in the family’s Kenyan homeland, Obama’s half-sister Auma describes a life of intellectual inquiry and social activism that mirrors the future president’s“ (Variety, September 2011)