Farewell Amor
Director: Ekwa Msangi
Writer: Ekwa Msangi
Cast: Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Zainab Jah, Jayme Lawson, Joie Lee, Nana Mensah, Marcus Scribner
Seen on: 16./17.12.2025

Plot:
17 years ago, Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) had to leave Angola and came to the United States. After all his time, finally his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and his teenage daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) can join him there. But 17 years is a long time to be separated. Walter and Sylvia don’t actually know each other, and Esther and Walter have changed a lot in their time apart. Plus, Sylvia and Esther have to adjust to living very differently now. In Walter’s small apartment, there is little space for strangeness.

Farewell Amor is a gripping movie, a heartfelt character study and an ode to the power of dance that really touched me.

On the face of it, Farewell Amor is a movie about destruction: how a family gets destroyed by being (forced) apart – a practice that is quite commonplace when it comes to immigration, for various reasons and in all kinds of countries. But that destruction is only the starting point, making the film much more about rebuilding the family afterwards.

Msangi has created a beautiful script for that, one that allows us to spend time with each of the three family members on their own terms and getting to know their perspective. Time and time again, they come together through dance in different ways, and music is also a big factor in the film that emphasises the emotional state of the characters.

The performances by all three – Mwine, Jah and Lawson – are beautiful, detailed and rich, with an excellent sense for body language. It’s exquisit to watch them work, each carving out moments separately and together that feel fragile, vulnerable and very precious.

Even though there are some elements to the story that should have felt trite, tropey (like the dance competition or the discarded negligee), Msangi is so clear about the emotional impact those things have on her characters, it always feels fresh, real, meaningful. It’s wonderful craftsmanship from everybody involved.

Summarizing: really great.