SITTING DOWN WITH FRANK ONANA

As we kickstart the countdown to Watersprite 2024, I was lucky enough to celebrate by sitting down with Frank Onana, the winner of Watersprite’s Best Performance award at last year’s festival. With a role in 2 seasons of Netflix’s hit show Ganglands and a host of festival award wins under his belt already, at only 24 Frank stands to be one of Watersprite’s most impressive alumni. I was particularly keen to find out how big-budget productions like Netflix compared to his experiences in student shorts, his favourite roles so far, and how he enjoyed his whirlwind trip to Cambridge.

Photo Credit: Henri Mahieu

I managed to squeeze in a chat with Frank between his busy shooting schedule in Belgium (I did ask him what for but he told me his lips were sealed). He and his family moved to Brussels from Cameroon in his childhood years, at which point he was harbouring dreams of professional football. But after being scouted by a casting director at a comedy club age 12 he got a taste for acting. Understandably Frank told me it was an amazing feeling at the time, but not getting that first role he was scouted for started his love-hate relationship with the industry. Like many before him, he described the inevitable rejections as tricky to deal with at first, and spoke of the negativity and self-doubt that must be so hard to brush off as curbed only by the endless positivity and motivation provided by his mum. At age 16 he landed his first role in a student film but with no formal acting training had to learn on the job. When I asked how he laughingly replied, ‘by watching a lot of movies’. Training Day is his all-time favourite and a career goal of his is to work alongside Denzel Washington. ‘I would audition for the part of a dog if it meant I could act alongside him’.

“With new platforms and training services, Belgian cinema is finally diversifying, and I have nothing but confidence that young talent like Frank will spearhead this much-needed change in the industry. ”

It was his role in Aimé that won Frank his Watersprite award last year, and his fondness for the film and its director duo is abundantly clear. Smiling, he tells me how he considers the two student film-makers that created Aimé some of his closest friends, and how much he learnt from his experience on the set. So how does his plethora of student film experience differ from his two seasons on French-Netflix-hit Ganglands? The answer in three words: money money money. Less production mistakes, less learning on the job, but also higher stakes. Frank tells me about how it’s amazing to see a team’s work go further than film-buff festivals and onto a wider audience, but still speaks highly of working on more amateur sets. He dares to say student films might even be more interesting and collaborative at times. Although does laugh and confess that perhaps film students in their final year of training are the better, more organised sets to be on.

With his love for the film and crew, and his massive ‘Best Performance’ win, it isn’t shocking that Frank enjoyed his Watersprite experience with Aimé. And of course, he made the obligatory comment of Cambridge looking just like Hogwarts. (It was at this point we also each discovered that Hermione is pronounced completely differently in French than in English, who knew). He also affectionately spoke of the international nature of the festival, even claiming it felt like Cannes, a comment that I’m sure all the Watersprite team will be pleased with. And I feel like we can take his word for it, as Frank was in Cannes this year for a new film called Toxic Love. He explains that has been perhaps his favourite role to date, and after constantly playing the bad guy (he’d even needed to attend training on how to realistically handle guns for Ganglands), playing the ‘funny guy’ for once was a nice respite.

Looking forward, Frank is filled with optimism, rightly so for the trajectory of his career, but also on a more macro-scale. He speaks of initially feeling like he didn’t belong, describing Belgium’s film scene as particularly white, and it being rare, if not unheard of, to see black people on TV. Thankfully however, he feels as though this is beginning to change. With new platforms and training services, Belgian cinema is finally diversifying, and I have nothing but confidence that young talent like Frank will spearhead this much-needed change in the industry. Apparently another student film that Frank features in has been submitted for the upcoming festival so hopefully we will see him there, but in the meantime, stay sure to keep updated by following his Instagram @frankonana.

Post by Lorelei Booth