Monalisa Chinda Talks About Farm Boy, An Advocacy Project
Ferdinand Ekechukwu
“I am not focusing on me. Currently, I focus more on what I can do to give back to society as a CSR. So, for me, advocacy is the way forward. So if I have to bring advocacy into storytelling, I will do it,” says Nollywood screen goddess, Monalisa Chinda, about her new film project – The Farm Boy.
Adding that Advocacy for her is everything, and that has been what has inspired her type of storytelling in the last ten years. The advocacy movie, which screened to a select audience in Abuja and Lagos recently attracted several heavy weights within and outside the industry. Monalisa, however, hinted in an exclusive chat that the film might take a while before berthing at the cinemas.
“But because The Farm Boy is such a huge project, I will first tour with it before a date is set for it, and that will take our time.” The Farm Boy explores the story of oil and politics. It follows Jude Katung, an urbane tech innovator who returns home to bury his father — a visionary farmer whose faith in the soil was a sacred covenant.
Confronted by the weight of legacy, betrayal and the promise buried in the soil, Jude is forced to rethink everything he knows about success and legacy. Farm Boy is a deeply human story of rediscovering value, rebuilding hope and finding a nation’s future where it all began — in the soil.
“Sincerely speaking, The Farm Boy is not just a film; it’s a movement to revalue and revitalise agriculture in our country. Agriculture is government, government is also agriculture. We need to understand that the real wealth of a nation is not just in oil alone. It can also be found in the soil via farming.”
Directed by Desmond Elliot, The Farm Boy, a MonalisaCode Production in collaboration with Arise Monalisa Foundation, according the actress is a soulful story of a young man’s redemption through the same earth that birthed his father’s hope; a moving metaphor for a nation that must till its way back to greatness.
The Farm Boy resonates, as a powerful and socially relevant film,
For Farm Boy, Monalisa assembled a blend of some old and new Nollywood faces, including Francis Duru, Sani Muazu and Mariam Apollo, Tony Goodman, Efe Irele, Joseph Momodu among several others, “It is, without doubt, a stirring cinematic journey into the soul of agriculture, resilience, and family legacy”, a film critic wrote.
