Age: 44
male
Blitz Bazawule is a filmmaker and musician born in Accra, Ghana and based in Brooklyn, New York. Blitz's short films Native Sun (2012) and Diasporadical Trilogìa (2016) have premiered at BAM New Voices in Black Cinema. His debut feature film The Burial of Kojo was released in 2018, later released on Netflix via Ava DuVernay's ARRAY distribution company. Bazawule wrote, directed, co-edited and co-prouced the film, as well as providing the soundtrack. As a musician and band leader, Bazawule has released 4 studio albums under the name Blitz the Ambassador - Stereotype (2009), Native Sun (2011), Afropolitan Dreams (2014) and Diasporadical (2016) as well as the soundtrack album to The Burial of Kojo (2019) - and has performed at music festivals such as Roskilde (Denmark), Solidays (France), Mawazine (Morocco) and Sauti za Busara (Zanzibar). Blitz is a 2016 TED Fellow and recipient of the Vilcek Prize.
The setting: the 1960's, Detroit. Estelle, an aspiring Motown singer, wants to make it big but she struggles to get her big break. Norman Mosley, a big Motown singer sees one of her performances in a club and wants her on his future record. They begin to go out and eventually they marry. When she sees a song meant for Norman, "I'm Nothin' When You're Gone", she wants to make it a duet. Norman stands his grounds and demands he wrote it for him to sing. Later, the record label unemploys him and the song goes to Estelle. The single is the #1 at the Billboards Chart, and her fame sky-rockets. Norman sees her success from the sidelines as he becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol. This leads to some conflict between them, including the fact that Estelle is now pregnant with Norman's child. Estelle eventually wins a grammy, but Norman interrupts the event by stumbling on stage and drunkenly shouts at Estelle about how she ruined him and yells at the camera as he passes out. Estelle is distressed and offers to pay his stay at a rehab center. He can't stand the idea of being supported by someone who "stole" his job, and he commits suicide. Estelle performs the single he wrote, "I'm Nothin' When You're Gone" for the last time before quitting and focusing on her life as a new mother.
