STOW AWAY

Ebenezer Mercer miraculously survived not one, but two separate sixteen-day trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to the U.S. while locked alone inside an empty shipping container with nothing but a bottle of water and a small pack of cookies. All the while, his three young children remained with their mother in the same community that drove him away. He had been accused of being gay by his Uncle, among others — a potential death sentence in Ghana — was beaten, escaped and fled.

Ten years later, now living in New Jersey, Ebenezer’s journey is far from over. After managing to get asylum and custody of his children, we follow his tenacious struggle to build a new life in a foreign land and witness the reverberating effects of a life violently uprooted. In finally obtaining U.S. citizenship and returning back to Ghana for a long awaited reunion with his Mother, Ebenezer comes to terms with the enormity of his actions while revisiting the harrowing details of his past. Doing so, we reveal the depths and fortitude of the human spirit and how far it can be pushed when survival is at stake.

This project is currently in production.