…Preserves, makes history
Truly, there is no gainsaying on the fact that Nigerian movies have come of age, amid enthralling storylines and narratives that are making waves on global stages.
The media, and especially moviegoers, can attest to the above at the recent premiere of My Father’s Shadow, at Filmhouse Cinema, Twin-Waters Entertainment Centre, Oniru, Lagos, recently, a development which set the tone for the film’s global rollout.
The uncommon storyline, the perfect delivery by the stellar cast, sound technical qualities, and shooting on 16mm grain using state-of-the-art technology by skilled crew members, all combined to set My Father’s Shadow apart from other equally good movies from the country.
These are also top among the reasons the movie, which is distributed by FilmOne Entertainment, made history as the first Nigerian feature in the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection (Un Certain Regard) and also received the Caméra d’Or Special Mention.
The movie explores the intriguing tale of how Remi and Akin, two kid brothers, get to spend a day with Folarin, their estranged father. They go on a voyage into Lagos, observing the colossal city for the first time and the hoops their father must deal with to provide. All this is happening in the backdrop of a huge 1993 presidential election result, which calls into question his ability to get them home.
The intrigue is that the kids were cruising the city and frolicking the beach with the ghost of their dead father, whose death has not been confirmed.
The skillful infusion of myth and contemporary views in the narrative, makes the African superstition belief of ghosts living with humans almost plausible, even to western audiences.
Of course, credit goes to the cast and crew teams, especially Akinola Davies Jnr, the director of the movie; Wale Davies, the writer, and Rachel Dargavel and Funmbi Ogunbanwo, the producers.
Another credit goes to Fatherland, an award-winning Lagos-based production company, which produced the movie in association with Element Pictures and Crybaby.
The co-financing by BBC Film and the BFIFremantle and Electric Theatre Collective as partners on the project, also impacted on the high quality of the movie.
However, at the Nigerian release, Fatherland, the movie producer, stated its intentionality at using the movie to preserve and make history.
The Nigerian movie production company insisted that film is a tool for preserving history, hence the recapturing the 1999 general election, which was won by MKO Abiola, but sadly annulled by the then military junta.
In preserving the above history, My Father’s Shadow made history as the first Nigerian feature in the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection.
Apart from the Cannes feat, My Father’s Shadow is probably the only or one of the few movies in the contemporary times that is delving into areas most movie producers shun, particularly deep African cultural beliefs for the fear of the narratives not appealing to western cinemas and audiences.
But My Father’s Shadow has broken the jinx.
As Wale Davies puts it at the question and answer session following the Lagos premiere, “The success of My Father’s Shadow shows that homegrown stories can compete on the world stage without sacrificing their roots”.
For him, stories to tell abound and the opportunities of telling them are limitless if only one optimally engages his/her creative ingenuity.
The fact that the successful movie was brought to life from the story conception to production by 80 percent Nigerian cast and crew members, according to Wale, points to the fact that the skills gap is fast closing and that Nigeria’s culture is globally exportable.
But what seems more interesting about the movie is the featuring of Chibuike Marvellous Egbo (12) and Godwin Egbo (10); breakout young actors from Enugu, whose bond as brothers translated beautifully to screen, allowing them to access moments of tenderness, vulnerability, and truth that lie at the heart of the movie.
Moreover, the debut of the young boys, who were discovered through a street casting initiative by Fatherland Productions, and whose mother is an actor and screenwriter, marks the start of a promising journey in film, both locally and internationally.
