A few weekends ago, you could find a handsome troupe of men and women looking at a huge screen within the Netherlands Consulate premises in Lagos. The event was a private screening of When Nigeria Happens, the latest project from the filmmaker Ema Edosio-Deelen.
Those who remember the lady’s name (or its maiden form Ema Edosio) are likely to have seen or heard about Kasala, her delightful 2018 feature debut about the misadventures of a group of boys in Lagos. For many viewers, that film launched the careers of Chimezie Imo and Emeka Nwagbaraocha, two actors who have become recognisable names and faces in Nollywood and in commercials.
Discovering or promoting new talent should be enough of a contribution for a first-time director—and yet, it could be said that Kasala‘s most impressive contribution to Nollywood was not its cast but the truthfulness in its portrayal of life on the Lagos Mainland. Several scenes took place on the streets, the boys spoke Nigerian English, and there was something very Lagosian about the antics of the film’s zany characters. You can count on one hand the number of Nigerian films that have matched Edosio-Deelen’s artful portrayal of Mainland living since that film’s release.
The new film, the one everyone came to see at the consulate, carries on that same level of knowing into the lives of a group of young dancers living in Lagos. Led by a charismatic dancer nicknamed Fagbo, the group are little more than hopefuls, cursed as many youths are with optimism and idealism. Both isms, in this case, are aimed at an unclear point in the future whereby the group is recognised for its brilliance and celebrated for just that.
But even as they dance on the streets, the boys and girls understand that their hopes lie mainly online. Social media, one senses, is their salvation. However, when a messiah does show up online, Fagbo, in particular, discovers that his dreams will come at a cost.
Edosio-Deelen had showed a different version of the film before, at another private screening held under the umbrella of the alternative film festival, S16. The earlier version was more freewheeling, looser in its depiction of a bunch of youth attacking the streets of Lagos. The new version is a more compact tale, with a more pleasing rhythm. Even so, the director, who also edited the film, asked for feedback. Perhaps another cut awaits the film before it opens to the general public.
Unlike the young audience at the Ikoyi venue of the S16 festival, the audience at the Dutch consulate skewed older and professional. But the responses from both sets of audiences, months apart, were similar. They laughed at the appropriate times and seemed to understand import of the film’s rather devastating final sequence. Of course, a European country’s embassy, is hardly the place—literally—where Nigeria happens. But one imagines a lot of the attendees had to wade through Nigeria happening to get to the chic screening venue.
At the end of the screening, during a Q&A, someone suggested rightly that parts of the film could be video installations at art events. But when asked later about her plans later, Edosio-Deelen had more digital-driven thoughts. She said that although she had submitted her film for consideration by some festivals, she was also thinking about putting the film out to the public online. “I’m toying around with self-distributing,” she said. “I’m considering putting it on my personal website for people to pay to watch it.”
She added that if she does go ahead with this self-distribution plan, she’d throw in her two previous projects. The idea is to work out a path for herself in the creator economy. While she considers her options, the private screening was mostly for her less digitally astute fanbase, even if she wants to give them a task.
“I would like the people who came here today to be the evangelists,” she said. “I would like them to say, ‘I just watched something amazing from Ema’.”
