Obasi and cinematographer Lílis Soares make use of the ocean to as a terrifyingly endless canvas against which to silhouette and anonymize human beings.

| Apr 11, 2025

Mami Wata’s hypnotic opening is overruled by underdeveloped characters and a general lethargy, in a film that’s at times breathtaking, at others unfocussed.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 3, 2024

Mami Wata, perhaps intentionally, guides the audience through a similar spiritual conflict of tradition and modernisation. Obasi bolsters gorgeous visuals with layered commentary for both sides.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 15, 2024

Mami Wata is a mesmerizing experience. Its stark, evocative visuals and story create an atmosphere that lingers long after the credits roll. A bold exploration of faith and cultural change.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 15, 2024

Obasi gives this the feel of a piece of avant-garde theater whose religiosity you can feel, if not always understand. I want to see his other stuff now.

| Mar 18, 2024

It has an otherworldly feel throughout, the arresting aesthetics and atmosphere compensating for a somewhat talky progress. While Mami Wata demands a degree of patience, it does have a uniqueness that Obasi has defined as well as anyone could...

| Jan 22, 2024

A probe into power, divinity and the plight of people caught between conflicting philosophies, Mami Wata is a unique and gripping film.

| Jan 3, 2024

Shot in dense, high-contrast black and white, writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s “Mami Wata,” unspools like a mysterious dream. It’s both inscrutable and hypnotic, delivering indelible images while remaining narratively opaque.

| Dec 25, 2023

Beyond its gloriously arresting visual style, Mami Wata is an interesting comment on power and corruption, whether it’s faith-based or practical. The film also acts as a warning against technological progress in the wrong hands.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 1, 2023

There’s a middle ground worth exploring, which is what the film and the filmmaker try to underscore.

| Nov 17, 2023

This visually beautiful and charismatically acted film is a fierce expressionist reverie or parable of power, shot in a lustrous, high-contrast black-and-white by cinematographer Lílis Soares.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 15, 2023

This brave and unusual film blends cultural defiance, intriguing mysticism, survival tension, and an unlikely romance, creating a narrative that is both poignant and unsettling.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 11, 2023

Under the merciless sky and near the crashing waves of Iyi, Mami Wata is a fearless mythical fable of resistance and rediscovering faith.

| Oct 10, 2023

Respecting the conjuring power of movies is all the devotion that’s required to fall under the spell cast by Obasi’s stark, roiling tale of spirit-world mysteries and all-too-human machinations, filmed in an evocatively dense monochromatic palette.

| Oct 9, 2023

The script seamlessly mixes the mundane with the mythological and presents characters which are at once ordinary, flawed humans and representatives of greater concepts.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 5, 2023

Mami Wata is a marvel to behold and Obasi throws in enough curveballs to this familiar story to keep you off-kilter.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 5, 2023

A gorgeously shot black-and-white film that tells an African folklore fable in a stunning lyrical manner.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 30, 2023

Cinema’s power to transport is vividly on display in Nigerian writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s eerie but beautiful visit to a rich and unfamiliar setting.

| Sep 29, 2023

The film casts a spell, and the spell persists to the end.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 29, 2023

Manages to distill themes that are at once primal and complex with virtuosic simplicity via the film’s arresting score, its refined story and dialogue and its black and white cinematography, which is more striking than most any modern Technicolor fantasy.

| Sep 28, 2023