Browsing the archives for the Art category.
The Focus Features Africa First Short Film Program supports films that aspire to artistic excellence and accomplished storytelling, and substantially contribute to the development of local film industries. Award recipients of the 2010 Focus Features Africa First Short Film Program can use award money received from Africa First to complete initial production and to pay for post-production costs such as laboratory fees, sound mixing, and editing.
More information here.
“I feel it’s best to look at this story critically from two angles. The first is the merits of the writing, which should of course remain paramount. In this, Tubosun does very well. He captures the dry absurdity of a potentially terrible situation, and the ending is remarkable in its pathos. I believed both the matter-of-fact and slightly sympathetic tone of the nurse, and I believed the narrator’s feelings when he hoped he did not have the illness, but suspected that, because of his life and where he lived, he might. Tubosun alternates between writing with very plain, ordinary language, such as when a conversation occurs, and larger, quite grand sentences which seek to encompass the tumultuous shifts of emotions experienced by the narrator. He is adept at both, and perhaps most importantly, knows when to use which. When the narrator talks to the nurse, the writing becomes short and sharp because the narrator himself is tense with anticipation, he must be calm, because if he is not – collapse. When he retreats within himself, his conscious is allowed to expand, and so, too, does the writing, Tubosun’s sentences uncoiling like languorous snakes willing to take their time to reach their destination.”
Culled from Damian Kelleher’s review of my story in African Roar. Read the rest here.
Set against the background of a corrupt society, the story of the votary virgin designated to “carry the calabash” for one last time before settling down into matrimony is enticing on its face. Add to that the intrigues of puberty and University life, the corrupt and often lecherous leaders (many of who have real life equivalents in Nigerian politics), historical figures in short cameos, and a multi-award winning director known for equally engaging films, and you have a winner, right? Yes, if you are a skillful playwright looking for a nice plot to use in writing the next bestselling play. No, if all you want is a screen flick that tries very hard to please everyone (UNICEF, Cultural experts, Movie buffs, Local language activists, suckers for love stories laced with music, and pretty much everyone else).
What I’m trying to say here, of course, is that I wasn’t much impressed with the movie except with the super acting by the seasoned actors (Lere Paimo, Kareem Adepoju, Bukky Wright, Peter Badejo, and the new Bukola Awoyemi), the song Afi fila perin , the major plot (which is the cleansing of a town as tied to the symbolic act of the virgin votary), and the picture quality. Everything else seemed distracting, especially the flashbacks. The sub-plots looked like poorly-handled attempts to situate everything in this quasi-imaginary world in which the events took place in the events of our real life. We see Obasanjo. We see Bola Ige. We see Abiola. We didn’t need to see them, but we did. Nothing else in the overall plot of the movie prepared or compensated us for the distraction. And even the love story which is the major subplot did not always convince. It surely didn’t live up to the standard of Ajani and Asake in O Le Ku handled by the same director.
The flashbacks were the main distraction. I did not see the point in keeping the details kidnapping attempt on Adetutu till the end. It should have been enlightening then, but it wasn’t, because we had already consoled ourselves – having seen her hale and hearty – that she had already survived in one piece; and the minor intrigue of the women who wanted her removed on the rumour that she had been raped did not really impress. What about the king’s inglorious offer to Adetutu earlier in the beginning? We didn’t know much about it until the end, for no justifiable reason. Other distractions included the sub-sub plot of the Islam and Christian adherents at the beginning and the end, Adetutu’s jealous rival (played by Kafat Kafidipe), the Oral Rehydration Therapy that eventually never saved a child from dying, the jealous housewives in the king’s palace, the spirits seen at the beginning and at the end coming out of the (supposed) Osun river to play with Adetutu (when we know for a fact that the story is not science fiction) among many others. I’m an ardent fan of Mainframe, but here, I see only minor resurrections of what we liked about Saworoide, Koseegbe, Campus Queen, and even O Le Ku. But that’s where the love ends. At the end of the movie, I did not stand, smile, ponder and send a text to my friends to go get a copy. I merely rewound it to listen to the song Afi Fila Perin many times again, then go to bed.
Now, this is what I suspect: there were too many consumer constituencies to cater for by this offering. And in the end, it ruined what could have been the best story since Death and the King’s Horseman (which is not even a movie yet, as it should be) – a classic meeting of tradition with “civilization” and the fallouts thereof. So many possibilities… Maybe if Tunde Kelani had written the story himself, or at least passed it through the hands of Akin Ishola, Bamiji Ojo, Wole Soyinka, or Bayo Faleti…
There, my KTrotten Tomatoes! Two stars out of five. Okay, maybe three. Maybe.
I find it interesting that the historic “Proposition 8” ban on gay marriages in the American State of California was struck down on the same day that I’d plan to blog about this movie that I was seeing for the first time. Brokeback Mountain (2005) is a very moving (but to me a little discomforting) story of two men whose friendship evolved into something more and lasted for a lifetime, withstanding even the challenge of their individual marriages and separate heterosexual lives. I doubt that bisexual love has been depicted on the screen with this level of boldness before or since Brokeback. Wikipedia compares it to the great romance stories like Romeo and Juliet and Titanic.
I had also recently seen a German movie called Aimee & Jaguar (1999) set in the Second World War, a true life story of an “abominable” (by standards of the time) relationship between a German woman, wife of a German officer, and a Jewish woman. Adapted from a book which contained photos of the many letters shared between the two, and official correspondences post WWII, the movie was remarkable not only because of the same sex nature of the relationship but because of the way the story depicts the love within the dangerous power relations and politics of the time. I know I could have enjoyed it better if my German was as good as that of the actors. Translations didn’t help much.
Both films – given to me by the same person who felt that I needed to update my tolerance credibility by exposing myself to the two prominent sides of the controversial coin – were refreshing in their own way. They both ended up very sad, yet moving, with very affecting moments, good acting and nice picture. Brokeback Mountain features Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal and it was nominated for the most Oscars at the 78th Academy Awards. It won three but lost “Best Picture” to Crash.
I took these random shots at the Faculty of Arts, in my former University in Ibadan, a few days ago. I also discovered that the very first female Head of the Department of Religious Studies since 1948 when the Univeristy was founded, has just been appointed, effective August 1st. It’s a positive news, tinted with the disillusionment that this should have been commonplace since very many years ago. I took these pictures from the balcony of the Department.