South Africa: Healer HeLa

Scottish actor and writer Adura Onashile cuts an elegant figure as Henrietta Lacks. Ebony skin clothed in stark white, blood-red nails, black braids pulled back into a bun and eyes glistening fearfully, she lays her body down onto the cold operating table as her cancerous tumour jerks her body around in pain.

HeLaOnashile fluidly transforms into various characters, including family members and medical practitioners as film clips depicting the numerous scientific advances made from cells harvested from her tumour (known as HeLa). The cells, used in a range of scientific discoveries because of their rapidly reproducing nature, were harvested without Lacks’ consent, and she and her family remained ignorant of the discoveries for decades. Lacks died in 1951 at the age of 31, completely unaware of what was happening and uncompensated for the use of her cells. She left behind a husband and five children.

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