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This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley, and today my guest is Blitz Bazawulae, the director of the 2023 musical film

adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple and the Burial of Kojo, his

directorial debut about gold mining in Africa.

Blitz has a new exhibit of paintings

that explore memories of his formative years growing up in Ghana.

I stopped by his exhibit, Those Were the Days in Los Angeles, two floors of

paintings that Blitz created during the pandemic years. They feature slices of

his childhood and a craw, kids playing soccer in the street, a man playing drums, a stylish family enjoying a birthday celebration.

The exhibit allows visitors to interact with it. So an example, I'm standing in a bright future room. You can

hear the sounds of a fan behind me and there's an old-time gramophone. There's this

table with an ornate tea set and a

comfy chair and when I sit down I'm facing Blitz's painting which depicts the

very scene of this room so it feels like I've stepped right into the painting.

Blitz's exhibit gave me a vivid sense of growing up in Accra and his love of the visual arts. He started sketching scenes of his life at a very young age

and he'd go on to use those talents to storyboard films he's gone on to direct including Beyonce's musical film

Black As King which he co-directed and the musical film adaptation of the Color

Purple which garnered 11 N-W-A-C-P image awards, including the prize for outstanding motion picture.

I spoke with Blitz-Bazawulae last week.

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