Rachel Mwanza, the lead character of a critically acclaimed Canadian film Rebelle, will be the only actress to represent Africa at the 85th Academy Awards. The Academy Awards, which is known to most people as The Oscars, is an annual award ceremony dedicated to celebrate outstanding cinematic achievements. Rachel, the Congolese young actress who played the role of a war witch named Komona, was chosen after producers saw her performance on a documentary about street kids in Kinshasa.
Her parents abandoned the 16-year-old actress at an early age. As a result, she spent many years living in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo.
The first time Rebelle Director, Kim Nguyen and Producers Pierre Even and Marie-Claude Poulin first came contact with Rachel she did not know her to read or write. The team then agreed to pay for the girls education as well as provide her with housing until she reached an adult age of 18. In 2012, Rachel received awards from the Berlin Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Vancouver Film Critics Circle. She was also nominated as Best Actress at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards.
With Rebelle being nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2013 Oscars, producers worked very hard to make sure the actress was granted a U.S visa in order to allow her attend the ceremony. According to several news sources, Rachel was granted a US Visa to enable her attend the 2013 Oscars that will be taking place in Los Angeles, California. This year’s edition is the 85th Annual Academy Award and it is scheduled to air on Sunday the 24th of February 2013.
About the movie
Rebels tells the story of the 12-year-old Komona from a small isolated sub‐Saharan Africa village who had lived peacefully with her parents until the day the rebels came and plundered the place. Komona was then captured and forced to commit the irreversible act of killing her own parents.
The trainings given to the captured children in the rebel’s camp are merciless; this made Komona hungry and scared. Within a short time, he learned to endure, to fight and most importantly, to survive.
Komona was the only person to survive a battle the rebel group waged against the government’s army. The rebel’s chief saw the event as a sign and the little girl was declared the new sorceress. She was then taken to Great Tiger, the supreme leader of all the rebels, who makes her his war witch. In all of this, only one person is prepared to help and listen to her, a 15-year old‐boy named Magician.
In a few months, Magician and Komona fell in love. A relationship that enjoyed a very short-termed moment of true happiness before the war catches up with them. In no time, Komona became 14 and pregnant. One of her biggest wish was to forget her tragic past in regards to her killing her parents, but her parents’ ghosts kept on reappearing. She soon realize that the only way to prevent the ghost of her parents from equally haunting child was to undertake the long journey that will lead her back to her birthplace.
Below is Rebelle – The War Witch Movie Trailer
