Films don’t just bring images to life – they have the same effect for cultures or the people within said cultures. That may just be the objective in Death of a Saint, where its Afro-Dane director Patricia Bbaale Bandak‘s narration feels more like prayer. Specifically, the narration is there to speak to a mother who died before she has memories of her. She speaks to her mother in Danish, a language that the latter probably didn’t understand, about the granddaughter she’ll never know. These are facts that Bandak speaks of in bittersweet terms even if she knows little about her mother.

Most people know to leave mysteries behind, but thankfully, cinema exists to focus on the very few who can’t leave things alone. Bandak uses the documentary format to investigate her mother’s death in Uganda but most try to dissuade her. In Death of a Saint, Bandak goes to Uganda only to hear people talk too positively about her mother. She has the right mind to think that her mother’s human side can be the answers to her questions. Thankfully, she finds an aunt who will tell her about her mother and, perhaps, the things that motivated her killers.

Bandak’s last ditch effort for everyone else to open up is through a ‘celebration’ of the life of her mother. Everything during that celebration goes wrong. And there’s a part of me that wishes that she pushes into those emotional extremes. There’s also a part of me that thinks that Death of a Saint doesn’t have fully formed versions of its ideas. There’s so much here between Bandak as a Westernised mind clashing against people who think in other ways. Nonetheless, this film is a good starting point for those ideas that it presents with a deft, even handed manner.