Grammy Award-winning Nigerian Afro-fusion megastar, Damini Ogulu, known as Burna Boy, begins his journey into filmmaking as an executive producer in Three Cold Dishes, a film based on sex trafficking.
This development comes on the heels of Burna Boy and South African filmmaker Mandala Dube’s partnerships with Black Mic Mac, a film and television production outfit championing African and Middle Eastern talent, curated last year by Senegalese creative Pape Boye and Logical Pictures.
Three Cold Dishes, a thriller produced by Tomi Adesina and directed by Asurf Oluseyi, is about story three teenage victims of sex trafficking who plan their revenge thirteen years after their first meeting. The Pan-African production is shot in three West African countries: Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Republic of Benin. While Black Mic Mac serves as co-producer, the film is the joint effort of production companies Ifind, Asurf Films, Alma Prods. and Martian Network as well as Burna Boy’s Spaceship Films, a company co-founded with Bose Ogulu.
The film stars an ensemble of Nigerian actors, including Wale Ojo, Femi Jacobs, Osas Ighodaro, Brutus Richards and Ruby Akubueze, and a few Senegalese and Ivorian actors.
Director Oluseyi has described the film as “an African cinematic journey like no other” and “the biggest pan-African film yet”. “This film is a testament to the strength and resilience of its characters, and it took us blood and sweat to get it to this stage,” he said in a conversation with Variety.
Black Mic Mac’s production slate also covers about a dozen films and television series spotlighting both developing and established talents. This includes occult crime thriller limited series The Devil Inside created by Willem Grobler and Dube who is also director; The Three Rascals, an adaptation of the Burkinabé hit Les Trois Lascars, directed by Nigeria’s Ishaya Bako (I Do Not Come To You By Chance); Johannesburg-based action film Apophenia, written and directed by Uganda’s Loukman Ali (Brotherhood); and La Sape, a documentary from Congolese filmmaker Jean Lux Herbulot.