Set in a pandemic, Wayfinder follows a young girl, The Wanderer, played by Perside Rodrigues, on a journey across England, from Hadrian’s Wall to Margate. A road movie of sorts, it is divided into six chapters, which explore issues of class, racism and gentrification, diasporic identity and the meaning of home.
The six chapters have voice-overs by five Black women and girls, written in collaboration with writer Aide Amoako. These narratives combine poetic reflections with real accounts, some of which draw on Achiampong’s own autobiography.
Travelling the country from north to south, The Wanderer encounters many different places, people, stories and situations. She begins her journey at Hadrian’s Wall and is seen off by a Griot – an important figure in West African culture whose role is to preserve oral histories. In Wellingborough, she meets Anita Neil OLY, the first female Black British Olympian. In London, The Wanderer visits JMW Turner’s paintings at the National Gallery, feeling the weight of Britain’s colonial past as she walks the empty halls at night. From there she travels east to the iconic Bethnal Green café E. Pellicci and on to Purfleet in Essex, eventually reaching the sea at Margate.
The Wanderer was inspired by Achiampong’s sister: ‘although two years younger than me,’ he says, ‘she would travel to far off places way before me.’ Through The Wanderer’s intrepid journey, the film builds a conversation about freedom to travel on one hand, and displacement of communities on the other. It asks us – who feels that they belong and what is the meaning of home?