Nosferasta: First Bite (2021)

Overview

Adam Khalil is a filmmaker artist and Ojibway tribal member whose work amplifies Indigenous artist voices. Bayley Sweitzer is a filmmaker whose lens-based practice seeks to advance radical political futures. Oba is a multidisciplinary artist, musician and actor. The collaborative short film Nosferasta: First Bite (2021) satirises the vampirism at the core of settler colonialism, relaying the origin story of a Rastafarian vampire, trafficked from West Africa to the Caribbean in the late fifteenth century. Bitten by Christopher Columbus, the vampire is doomed to co-pilot Columbus’ project of transmitting the colonial virus through the western hemisphere. Oba’s mixed media sculptures, resembling spiritual idols and art historical effigies, extend the film’s concerns.