Nothing fittingly describes my journey to the screening of Five Resilient Women event than this phrase: “Man proposes but God disposes.” However, to perfectly capture my journey to the location, the phrase will lend itself to a rewrite: “Seyi proposes but Lagos disposes.” Lagosians reading this might have a keen understanding of this anecdote. For non-Lagosians, what this means is that in Lagos, with its unpredictable traffic congestion and odd bus drivers, a 30-minute trip can painfully morph into 3 hours. Thus, even when your journalistic instinct, as is my case, propels you out early, the unpredictable traffic surge can hold you, hostage, while the screening of films you’re meant to watch and write about gets started already. Enough story.
In celebration of International Women’s Month, Celestina Aleobua’s That African Production and Taiwo Adeyemi’s Polygon hosted a screening of five films tagged Five Resilient Women. Before getting to the venue, Rashida Seriki’s Leaving Ikorodu in 1999 and its post-screening conversation ended. On getting to the cozy Polygon space, Abbesi Akhamie’s The Incredible Sensational Fiance of Seyi Ajayi had almost finished screening. Thus, as the screening ended followed by enthusiastic clapping and utterances of muffled praise for the film’s art direction, I couldn’t share in the zeal. Featuring Ayowole Solomon, one of the film’s editors, the short-lived post-screening discourse provided me insight into how, subconsciously, personal opinions and biases can slip into a film when surveillance-like attention isn’t paid to the project. Solomon revealed how, on first edits, he edited the film from a masculine perspective. However, conversations with the other female filmmakers on the project reshaped the masculine perspective.
Directed by Moses Ipadeola, Ekun Iyawo: A Tale of a Runaway Bride is, if memory isn’t foggy, my most-watched Nollywood short film. On its heels is Ifeoma Nkiruka Chukwuogo’s Bariga Sugar (one of my favorite Nollywood short films.) Different watches inspire different thoughts. Rewatching it during this screening, a thought that came to mind was the film’s usage of cinematography for storytelling. Shot in mostly tight spaces, the cinematography, deftly handled by Suara Olayinka metaphorically captures how restricted the female lead character is. Betrothed to an ailing warlord who needs her tears for a medical concoction, our lead character must fashion a way out of this deeply patriarchal society that pays hollow attention to her wants and desires. She must follow this supposed tradition or embrace the consequences with her lover.
Explaining the creative, metaphorical, and political aspects of his work, Ipadeola mentioned his experimental filmmaking genre: TradoFiction. Ipadeola quickly explains this as the interrogation of Yoruba or African culture and myth with a subtle touch of fiction. Explaining his pain about the futility of feminist movements and the disturbing backlash women are exposed to, he casually mentioned the popular Fela Anikulapo anecdote: his marriage of his lead singers. To end this, he suggested Fela being a feminist which caused stiffed bodies to move and hitherto muffled voices to go up some decibel higher.
Ipadeola’s Ekun Iyawo: A Tale of a Runaway Bride was followed by Echoes. Directed by Ifenna Okeke and art directed by Ogbe David Ogbe, the film relies heavily on CGI, created from scratch, to ground its narrative and words. The film, set in the spiritual throve of different Igbo gods and goddesses (Ala, Amadioha, Edemilie, and others), traces back to the historical Nigerian Civil War. This time, our characters are these Igbo deities. We see the story of the war through these deities’ perspectives. We trace the beginning, during, and aftermath of the war through their eyes. The usage of colors, totems, symbols, and art carvings, on the artistic spectrum, are some of the aesthetically pleasing aspects of the film.
The closing film for the night was Celestina Aleobua’s Tina, When Will You Marry? This witty, revealing, and concise documentary centers the story of five Nigerian-Canadian women conducting the orchestra of their personal lives despite overwhelming noises from family and society. My third view of the documentary, what I notice is the editing choices. How the editor, possibly under the guidance of the writer-director, must have tripped out numerous parts.
Like the other films, the screening of Tina, When Will You Marry? elicited wilful laughter from the audience. The host, after the screening, asked if anyone had experienced the pressure to get married. Two ladies share their story. This was followed by a quasi-post-screening conversation moderated by Efua Claire Jobi-Taiwo. During this, Aleobua highlighted the aim of the screening, shared anecdotes, and profusely appreciated the audience. Aleobua’s goal and aim for this screening and subsequent edition is to open up African cinema and filmmakers to international audiences. “When we think of African cinema, we think of Senegal because we can access the films made in the 60s and sort of conclude that they pioneer African cinema. But, for me, I wonder, what about the other African countries making films during this period that got lost or spoiled,” she mentioned during the conversation.
Years ago, she mentioned seeing a picture taken in an African country featuring deteriorating films roll. One of what she thought about, upon seeing this image, is the numerous people who will never get to watch those films. This, as she recounted, will inspire the narrative that Africans don’t tell great stories or that they just started making films. This goes to say that the erasure of African cinema in world cinema conversation is influenced by the lack of documentation or improper documentation of our film history and access to African films. Giving access is what Aleobua is hoping to achieve with the screening.
“What I want to keep doing is giving access to these African films to an international audience. I wouldn’t have had access to watch these films myself if I hadn’t attended indie film festivals as well. Recording and sharing our history is what I’m hoping to achieve in my lifetime. And I’m hoping that more people will join me in doing this. Thus, if anything, I take it very seriously to record and share our history abroad,” she mentioned.
Joining the crowd, I spoke with a few mutuals, shared laughter, and took pictures. Speaking, via WhatsApp, about the selection process, Aleobua mentioned that since the event was for International Women’s Month, she wanted to curate films that featured badass, resilient women in stories that challenged the typical tropes of Nollywood. “I am very attracted to Black people in vibrant colors on the screen and so with all these films, there’s a running theme of saturated, bright, poppy colour palettes.” Aesthetically, all these films, although from different worlds, look very good together,” she mentions.
Is this a one-time screening or there will be a subsequent edition? The filmmaker responded in the affirmative. “I have had the pleasure of watching a lot of independent short films here in Lagos and Accra, and hope these filmmakers will shape a new wave of African cinema. I would like to be a custodian of these stories travelling far and wide. I plan to host another screening in Toronto in the coming months and go from there,” she tells me.
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