Dion Jones
Prof J. Pressman
ECL 305; Literature and the Environment
16 November 2025
Discovery 2: Omambala: The Water will Carry Us Home
What I see
Gabrielle Tesfaye’s film “The Water Will Carry Us Home” (2018) is an afrofuturistic work featuring the ocean—as The Water Spirit Omambala—as a world and entity with agency. It first appears as an active entity at 2:13, bares the discarded enslaved women around 4:14, and transforms them and their children into mermaids and merfolk around 4:30 before featuring the water in a supportive capacity for the remainder of its screentime. Centering the water in such an explicit way conveys a sense of significance, respect, and connection for those involved. The water is so much more than a place.
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How it is Depicted:
Water is portrayed in the film in several forms: ocean water in a two-dimensional static or stop motion format that carries people and vessels, a divine mermaid, or waves/surf in live action.
The static form of the 2D depiction of the water is used to introduce the particular story at the heart of the film. The stop motion form of the water carries the ships and supports the historical images and sources—news paper articles—to help identify the time period. Functionally, the choice to use 2 dimensional images allows the audience to compare the film’s events both in the past and future adding to the film’s credibility in light of its religious and mythological elements.
The inclusion of the water as the divine mermaid—Omambala—functions to honor the cultural and spiritual belief systems of West African peoples—the Igbo in particular—and allows for the film to operate as more-than-a-tragedy. The water uses its agency to save the discarded captives and restore their dignity by providing belonging. The mothers become divine mermaids themselves—with increased size to represent their increased significance—while their children school around them. Their dignity and value are weaved into the mythological, allowing them to continue differently to the terrestrially bound as actual beings of the water or as living stories in their mother culture’s long memories.
The water in its comparatively mundane live action form rolls endlessly against both the shore and structures. The young woman in the closing scenes featuring said surf utilizes the water as medium for which to give her respects while also seeking connection. The headphones of shell and metal are plugged into the sand, presumably connecting the woman of the future to the great spirit Omamabala who ideally connects to the aforementioned living stories and merfolk across time and space.
What Does it Add?
“The Water Will Carry Us Home” challenges the audience to consider the ocean as a historical record, a home, and as an active part of the world. The film interacts with what SIRIUS UGO ART suggests as the traditional Igbo belief in Omambala—the mother of the Igbo people while also referencing the Igbo Landing of 1803 where the captive Igbo escaped the Atlantic Slave Trade via mass suicide while praying to their Omiriri Omambala, a prayer which roughly translates to the title of the film “The Water has brought us here, the water will carry us home”. While the film ends with a cliff hanger, it reintroduces mythology and spiritual belief as a valid conduit for which to interact with the world. The water is respected and centered rather than written off as a beautiful second fiddle to the typical human drama and Christian metaphysics of Undine or The Little Mermaid. It marries history, mythology, and hope into the imagination without painting the physical world as rest stop on the cosmological escalator.
Works Cited
“Igbo African Goddess: OMAmbala by Sirius Ugo Art.” YouTube, uploaded by SIRIUS UGO
ART, Nov 29, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_z257yw17A. Accessed
16 Nov. 2025.
Tesfaye, Gabrielle. “The Water Will Carry Us Home – Official.” YouTube, uploaded by Gabrielle
Tesfaye, Jun 24, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGlhXhIiax8. Accessed
16 Nov. 2025.