Damilola Orimogunje on why the Private and Personal is Political

Damilola Orimogunje’s Dear Ajayi had its UK premiere at the 2026 Jali Film Weekender as the festival’s opening film. Distributed by FilmOne, the film will begin its Nigerian cinemas run on November 13, 2026, following a limited theatrical run in September. After its UK premiere and expected cinema run, Culture Custodian had a conversation with the director about the film’s origin, its thoughts around the personal and the political, making art in a capitalist-driven world, and the usage of sound and silence to communicate emotions. 

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

This project has been almost a decade in making. When did the idea for it begin and where did you start?

It began one evening after rewatching Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida. I was particularly struck by the film’s strong, dynamic women, the clarity of its artistic direction, its restraint, and its vivid cinematography. Something about the way these women occupied the frame stayed with me. It sowed the seed of wanting to tell a story about two strong women I had encountered much earlier in my own life. I think that evening was the beginning of a journey that eventually became this film.

It’s interesting how in a capitalist-driven world, the artist must slave away their life, morals, identity, and politics just to afford the little pleasure the world has to offer. As an artist, how do you deal with this?

Selling your soul can sometimes seem like the easiest route, but I also find it rather boring. I’ve consciously tried, throughout my life, to find a balance: to discover genuine ways of expressing myself without losing sight of who I am, while also understanding how the capitalist world operates and finding ways to navigate it on my own terms. I believe it’s important not to let the system dictate the entirety of one’s artistic identity.

Ade Ajayi’s response to dialogue is often limited to monotonous grunts and monosyllabic words. How were you able to direct this performance and that of other characters whose mannerism contrasted with hers?

My approach to filmmaking has always been built around strong performances and the economy of words. I believe characters don’t always need to explain themselves. Some of the most powerful moments in cinema happen when an audience is allowed to understand a character through their silences, gestures, contradictions and vulnerabilities rather than through dialogue. I built my direction around this philosophy and worked closely with my actors to help them understand and inhabit that language. 

Why the world of silent violence? And how do you find a way to bring this quiet humanity and vulnerability to the characters, even though William Benson, the husband, is doing something that we don’t agree with?

Because, as human beings, we are far from perfect. In fact, we are often the villains in someone else’s story, sometimes with reasons we believe justify our actions. The world is quick to judge people by the surface of their actions, but I want my cinema to look beyond that and explore the complexities beneath them. I am interested in portraying people as they truly are: contradictory, flawed, vulnerable and capable of both tenderness and cruelty. That doesn’t mean excusing their actions, but allowing us to understand the humanity of the people behind them. I think there is something important in recognising that even those who cause pain have their own histories, struggles and contradictions.

One issue in the film that I think deserves a lot more attention is how much William Benson’s character struggles as an artist despite his talent and efforts. What was it about his character that resonated with you as an artist? And, how were you able to reconcile this with the reality of being an independent filmmaker in Nigeria?

Lol. I can’t relate. Jokes apart, what resonates with me most about his story is sacrifice. As human beings, we are constantly confronted with difficult choices, often caught between opportunity, timing and the things we are willing to give up to pursue what we believe in. It’s an especially difficult way to live in a dysfunctional society where talent and hard work don’t necessarily translate into opportunity or fulfillment. But it’s a reality I’ve encountered in the lives of many artists around me, and it was important for me to portray that struggle honestly. His story isn’t just about the frustration of an artist, it’s also about the personal cost of pursuing a dream in a world that doesn’t always make room for it.

What’s impressive is how Akintola’s character, even when she isn’t directly the victim of capitalist violence, miogyny, and sexual violence, is the confluence of all these issues. 

I’ve always been intrigued by how much socio-political, economic and cultural realities shape our individual experiences of love, happiness and belonging. We are, in many ways, products of the societies we inhabit. That was one of the things I set out to explore with this film, how the personal is often inseparable from the political. You don’t necessarily have to have experienced the exact circumstances of these characters to recognise something of yourself in them. Their lives are shaped by forces that extend far beyond their immediate circumstances, and I think that is what makes their experiences relatable. We are all, in one way or another, at the centre of these larger societal structures, whether we realise it or not.

This is an opportunity to ask a previously-asked question about the characters’ costume. Bimbo Akintola is often regalled in blue clothes except when she’s at the hospital. I see this costume choice as a signpost of her enduring grief, pain, duty, and imprisonment to responsibilities. How do you interpret this choice?

I think that’s a beautiful reading of the costume, and quite close to what we intended. Ade’s relationship with blue was conceived as an extension of her emotional and psychological state. There is a certain restraint and quietness to the colour that mirrors how she carries herself and the weight of the responsibilities she has assumed. Her appearance at the hospital, where that visual consistency is interrupted, also allows us to subtly distinguish between the different spaces and roles she occupies. I wanted the costumes to do more than establish a period or define a character’s personality. They had to become part of the film’s visual storytelling.

Sound, songs, and silence are integral to understanding music, individual characters, the world building, and characters’ decisions. Why the use of silence and specific songs in the film? 

I believe we understand ourselves better in silence, when we have the space to introspect and confront our thoughts without distraction. But silence in cinema is never entirely silent. There is always the presence of natural sounds that identify and give life to the world around us. I’m also interested in how people find ways to conceal their secrets and emotions, or communicate things they cannot bring themselves to say directly. In this story, the characters turn to their respective art forms, music and painting, as alternative languages through which they attempt to express themselves. In many ways, these become their loudest forms of communication, yet they still struggle to be heard. That tension between expression and silence was something I wanted the soundscape to capture.