THE GIFTED
In the 15th century, Dogon, a kingdom in Mali, was invaded by aliens. Some of them symbolized the Nothingness: the Nomo, and others were seeking Evil : the Ogo. Through centuries, they transmitted their supernatural powers in a cyclic way to their descendants, living nowadays in the south of the USA. The time has come for a new cycle of confrontations between Good and Evil, two archenemies. The Ogo want to dominate the Nomo and take their power in order to repopulate their dead planet: Sirius. For that, an alien is sent to Earth to find the Dogon’s descendants, who possess supernatural powers corresponding to the Ogo’s needs. The battle against the despicable and powerful Ogo will be hard for the Nomo, representing Good and helped by the forces of Sirius and their terrestrial descendants. The previous confrontation decimated and destabilized the current society and this terrible fight during the final battle will cause permanent harm to both rival entities.
Audrey Lewis made the first African-American fantastic film and transports us right back into the spirit and form of the American B-series films. She refuses indeed to rely on spectacular special effects, preferring to use them with subtility to punctuate the few fight scenes against these omnipresent, but almost invisible evil beings. The director relies on genre films to express the black identity and its concerns. This is particularly important as it allows us to pinpoint some aspects of the African-American culture and its main commitments. It is clear that the everlasting duality between Good and Evil, that is offered to us in this film, is simply a metaphor of the constant opposition between black and white people in the USA, which has underscored the identity crisis and the reconsideration of the entire black community over the last few years.