Africa in Pictures
A sneak peak behind the scenes of Nollywood.
Commentary
Discussing cellphone filmmaking in Africa
Tutorial
Character development with Oladipo Agboluaje
Wanuri on Pumzi
Kenyan director, on her new Sci-Fi.
Jenna Bass speaks on The Tunnel
A film on the massacre of Matabeleland.
African films at Odeon cinemas
High demands for African films at Odeon.
AMAA 2011
Viva Riva! breaks record at the 2011 AMAA ceremony.
On set of The Mirror Boy by Obi Emelonye
The Mirror Boy by Obi Emelonye
Popular Nollywood actor, Osita Iheme
Obi Emelonye’s latest film, The Mirror Boy is set to premiere in London this February. The film is hailed as the first Nigerian film to be premiered at the Empire cinema, and the director and producers are positive regarding the upcoming 2011 African Movie Academy Award.
The film is about a young boy, Tijan, who is taken back to The Gambia to gain some discipline and learn more about his identity. On arrival, Tijan gets lost in a crowded street market, after witnessing a strange apparition.
Filled with rich cinematography and the exciting novelty of the Gambian platform, the film aims to embrace the issue of identity in a colourful and refreshing way.
African Screens’ Chinaka Iwunze speaks to Obi Emelonye, lawyer turned filmmaker about his film The Mirror Boy and the New Nigerian Cinema film movement.
Obi, how did you come about The Mirror Boy script?
My wife, Amaka observed our first son D’Kachy as he grappled with his dual nationality (British/Nigerian) and the attendant identity crisis. She then told me a simple story about a London boy who goes missing on his first trip to Africa and I took the plot and weaved a great African adventure around it while retaining the crucial element of a confused identity.
I showed it to my professional colleagues like Dr Kola Munis and Sango B’Song. They helped me actuate the deep spiritual impetus of the story and tame what were my exuberant flights of fancy. The result was the first draft of The Mirror Boy in 2005.
The Mirror Boy has been five years in the making. It generated interest from the now defunct UK Film Council but I got tired of being passed from pillar to post and pulled the script from them.
Since then, the script has metamorphosed into this great story of ‘Africanness’, which I wrote originally for Nigeria but then tweaked a little to sit properly in The Gambia.
As a Nigerian Filmmaker, why set your film in The Gambia?
Gambia is not known for its cinema, but it is a beautiful African country. The film was originally written for shooting in southern Nigeria at the Obudu Mountain Ranch. That was until the intervention of Fatima Jabbe, my associate producer and the Gambian President, Sheikh, Prof. Yahyah A. J. J. Jammeh.
Fatima is Gambian and encouraged us to take the production to the Gambia with promises of free accommodation and logistical support. As a pan-African filmmaker, I saw the opportunity to make a truly African film with Nigerian star cast and UK crew on Gambian soil. I also valued the contribution of such a film to the fledgling Gambian film industry.
Your film is said to be representative of the 'New Nigerian Cinema'. How would you define this movement and where does this leave Nollywood?
I am going to be careful with what I say here because my CNN interview was misconstrued. Nollywood is an exclusively DVD based industry. Therefore what affects DVD sales impinges on the industry directly.
Over the last couple of years, Nollywood reached a critical point in its evolution. With the proliferation of TV stations showing Nollywood films, the decline of the DVD format as a medium of choice and the ravages of piracy and audience fatigue, the Nollywood film industry declined rapidly.
It had to adapt to survive and one of the options available to it was the cinema route. But to tow that line, the production values of the films had to increase considerably.
Cueing a new breed of filmmakers who tell essentially the same stories but pay more attention to the factors of production and the new informal movement ‘New Nigeria Cinema’ was born.
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Tijan, played by Ugandan actor - Edward Kagutuzi, is taken hostage in The Gambia.
Interview by Chinaka Iwunze | Photos courtesy of Obi Emelonye
Obi Emelonye's The Mirror Boy Premieres at Leicester Square London
