Little Black Dress: Reproductive-Related Retribution
With acting credits in the American biographical drama, Queen of Katwe, Esteri is no novice to making pictures and she isn’t new to the theatre either. Her resume is replete with roles and experiences that have transformed her deeply. These transformations we can see in a short film that was screened yesterday at AFRIFF 2019, “Little Black Dress”.
“When you act and go behind the camera to direct, you are more aware,” Esteri says after her film has been viewed on the third day of the Festival.
Little Black Dress is a movie created from Esteri’s awareness of the conditions surrounding the women in her home country in Uganda.
Entertaining acts of vengeance
The movie opens with a man, Moses, tied to the bed. His wife joins him on the bed and it looks like they are about to get freaky. But that’s where we are wrong. Rather, his wife has sinister plans for him.
Switching from flashback to the present, we learn that the couple has tried for a child for years and has not gotten any. Yet, only the wife suffers abuse from Moses and his family.
We also learn that Moses had been hiding something, a semiology test that shoes that he has azoospermia while hypocritically taunting his wife for her infertility.
While under aline of questioning, the wife tortures Moses for answers until he reveals the truth. Also, she makes him drink what she has been drinking to avenge the wrongs he has done to her.
Plot twist
That is not all. The last scene, which breaks the 2-man cast that we have been witnessing, shows Moses waking up outside the house in a black dress. He finds that they are three men in black dresses with him.
Together, they exit the compound while the wife decked in jewelry looks on. The next scene shows a book on the bedside table titled “The Little Black Dress”, the manuscript for a magnificent movement.
Esteri playing the wife brings a powerful performance to the screen. it is impossible to ignore her strong work ethic and talent. The audience received the film pretty well.
The pace of the storytelling was constant. Movies that deal with this theme have a tendency to go over the top. But Esteri grounds the struggles into two locations and a mostly two-man cast. The dialogue is top-notch, I must say.
The Little Black Dress deals with themes including justice and equality for all women. Esteri mentions that she had been displeased with the utterances of the Ugandan Minister. The Minister wanted to promote the objectification of Ugandan women to attract tourists.
The statement had sparked outrage across the nation with various human rights activists speaking against it. Esteri transforms this social issue into a short completely captures the situation.
With a short film that tackles strong issues like these, everyone anticipates what Esteri Tebandeke will do next.
