Making Braids
short documentary
post-production
An exploration into the intimate world of African Hair salons. Making Braids a short documentary weaving together tales of African women in the diaspora their relationship to gender, nationality and themselves. The nonfiction short details a coming of age through the essential act of making braids.
Production for Making Braids held throughout 2023. The project is currently in post-production. With director and co-editor, Similejesu Sonubi and editor, Demilade Omoreige.
STORY
“Making Braids” is a short documentary weaving together tales of African women across the diaspora and their relationship with gender, nationality, and themselves. The nonfiction short film details coming of age through the essential act of making braids.
Making Braids sprang from the director’s experience growing up in African Hair Salons, a space they returned to throughout their development. In this place, transformation occurred. Women with shared identities were able to find solace in an American world that was not entirely home. Although this became a place of comfort, growing pains were felt by those with conflicting perceptions of what it means to be a woman, an immigrant, Black or African.
Traveling across salons in New York, our documentary accentuates some of the conversations and intimate thoughts held while getting braids. It features conversations with African women, some of the daughters of stylists, some who have shunned their African heritage, and others who became braiders for survival.
Through discussions, we learn that identities are not fixed but contested by others and ourselves. This project recontextualizes gender, nationality, and the performance of womanhood. Titles such as Black, American, African, and woman placed upon the documentary participants were once sources of confusion, yet through exploration and challenging themselves, we witness these women learn to define their identities.
Our targeted audience is Black women in the diaspora. The familiarity of making hair provides us with an environment that gives the audience a closeness to reflect on conversations typically held in silo.This story steers the conversation from women to women, mothers to daughters, sisters to sisters, and friends to friends, our audience.
“Making Braids” chronicles a come-to-power for African women using the salon as the stage.