Osvalde Lewat

Osvalde Lewat is a Cameroonian filmmaker and photographer best known for her sociopolitical documentaries.

Early life Osvalde Lewat was born in Garoua, Cameroon, in 1977.

Film career

Lewat studied film in Canada where she began her documentary filmmaking career. Her first documentary, The Calumet of Hope (Upsa Yimoowin), was filmed in Toronto in 2000. It illustrates the marginalization of Native Americans in America and won a human rights award at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2003. Lewat was awarded the human rights prize at the Vues d'Afrique festival in Montreal for the film.

Black Business (2008) Lewat's 2008 documentary, Black Business (Une Affaire de nègres), centers on the political events that occurred in 2000 in Cameroon. A special branch of the Doula police, the Operational Command, are tasked with addressing the expanding problem of criminal activity in Douala. The special unit becomes responsible for the disappearance of a thousand men in a single year. In the film, Lewat interviews family members of the victims, political activists who speak out against the violence, and rare survivors of the mass killings. Lewant shows viewers the crime scenes, the villages where the victims were taken, and the places where the victim's bodies were found. The documentary was nominated for the Muhr AsiaAfrica Award in 2008.

Lewat's documentary investigates the purchasing of large acreages of farmland in Mali, by Saudi Arabian and Chinese businesses who build large agribusiness farms. The film tackles themes of food sovereignty, imperialism, modern poverty, and land ownership. Co-directed by Hugo Berkeley, the documentary won a Peabody Award in 2012."

Film and television Year Film Role