VBay’s Arts Review (Films)

Have you visited www.venussbay.com?

Welcome to the maiden edition of Vbay’s arts review, a weekly review article on films, books, food, paintings etc. This week’s edition is going to be about three wonderfully made films by Nigerians in Nigeria.  One of the films has already been released, the other was premiered two days ago at the London film Festival and the third is yet-to-be released. So what is special about these three films? Let’s find out below;

‘76

The first on our review list is the soon-to-be-released ’76, a historical, fiction, drama film. A movie by Adonijah Owiriwa, a Port Harcourt based Mechanical Engineer/Filmmaker and Izu Ojukwu. ’76 is about a young military officer from the Middle Belt part of Nigeria who gets into a romantic relationship with an O-Level student from the South eastern region of Nigeria. However, their relationship is strained by constant military postings. The soldier gets accused of being involved in the 1976 unsuccessful military coup and assassination of General Murtala Mohammed and the heavily pregnant wife gets entangled in an emotional dilemma. The film which is set in the 70s was shot in Ibadan, Oyo state. The film project was in the works for seven solid years keeping Owiriwa busy at different stages of the production from conception, scriptwriting, script-conferences (both home and abroad), pre-production, main production and post production.  The estimated budget for the film is 80 million naira. ’76 premiered at the BFI London Film festival on 1^st September 2016 and has been selected to premiere at the Toronto Int’l Film festival Canada this September.

Chameleon

Next is the well acclaimed film ‘Chameleon’ written and produced by David Ivan Danisa, a Nigerian Filmmaker resident in Luxembourg. The film is currently showing in cinemas across Nigeria. Chameleon is about a Nigerian spy on an important mission to track and expose a ruthless antagonist Lucio. The film exposes criminalities within the Nigerian oil sector. According to Danisa, Chameleon took two years to produce and was shot at various locations in Lagos, Calabar and certain cities in Luxembourg, Brussels and France. Danisa, who worked as an investigative journalist for a major Nigerian newspaper, says the film is based on his investigations about the stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil in exchange for weapons. He said the film is created out of the need to expose the illegalities and criminal activities of a ruthless network of individuals spread across different continents.

Okafor’s Law

The last movie on our review list today is ‘Okafor’s Law’ produced by the New York Film Academy trained Omoni Oboli. The film is yet to be released and has been nominated for the Toronto Int’l Film Festival happening this September in Canada. The film features RMD, Tina Mba, Halima Abubakar, Yvone Jegede, Ken Erics and Pat Nebo among others.

(By PJ Mantoss)