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A Por Por Funeral for Ashirifie

A Por Por Funeral for Ashirifie MAIN

A Por Por Funeral for Ashirifie

Price: $320.00
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Filmmaker Name: Steven Feld
Film Length: 60 min
Film Year: 2009
Duration: 46-75 min
Decade: 2000s
Series: Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra Series
Language: in English, Ga, Twi
Subtitle Language: with English, French, Italian subtitles
Color: color
Closed-captioned: closed-captioned
Region: Africa
Subject: Music, Dance & Theater
Sharing Discount has been applied

ABOUT

Por Por music (pronounced “paw paw”) is named for the honking sound of antique squeeze-bulb car horns, ubiquitous on the wooden lorries of Ghana's early transport history. After electric horns arrived in West Africa a union of bus and truck drivers in the Accra township of La kept the por por horn and invented a jazzy honking. The La drivers only perform Por Por at funerals of their fellow union transport workers. 

In March 2008 the La Drivers Union Por Por Group lost one of its key members, Nelson Ashirifie Mensah. This film documents the funeral performed in his memory and discusses Por Por's relation to the New Orleans jazz funeral.  

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS
Prix Bartok, Jean Rouch Film Festival, 2010



Films in the Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra series: 
Hallelujah! (60 min, 2009)
Includes the short film From Accra to Santa Fe (18 min, 2009)
The Story of Por-Por (60 min, 2013) 
Includes the short film M.V. Labadi (20 min, 2013)

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