Moviegoers will have the opportunity to see the critically-acclaimed movie ‘Farming’ by British Nigerian actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in cinemas, Friday, October 25. The premiere which held last Saturday, October 19 left most viewers emotionally moved by the raw and honest tale of the actor’s childhood.
Written and directed by Akinnuoye-Agbaje, ‘Farming’ tells the tale of the actor’s early life turned into a drama for his directorial debut.
The movie premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival and won the Michael Powell Award at the 2019 Edinburgh Film Festival. The premiere evening in Lagos was powered by Access Bank, Accelerate TV, Stunt Group and Filmhouse Cinemas.
Starring Genevieve Nnaji, Kate Beckinsale,Gugu Mbatha-Raw among other actors, the films tells how Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a young Nigerian boy raised by white foster parents in 1970s Tilbury, Essex, forged an identity for himself in a violently racist local skinhead gang, and lived to tell the tale.
It both dramatises a brutal and moving coming-of-age and shines a light on a little-known chapter in the story of race relations in Britain: the practice that led to thousands of Nigerian children like Akinnuoye-Agbaje being ‘farmed out’ to British families in that period.
Agbaje was given away at birth to white parents which were common practice in those times; tens of thousands of Nigerians would give away their children, this was some sort of social experience.
“It’s a project I couldn’t live without telling and this is what really motivated me to tell it, it was surreal to stand in my Father’s shoes and look at myself from his perspective, that was both healing and painful and enlightening,” said the actor.
The movie also stars Nigerian, Damson Idris who plays Enitan, a central character in this film which hits on sensitive issues like racism, discrimination and touches slightly on modern-day slavery – as well as Nollywood actress Genevieve Nnaji who plays the actor’s real-life mother.
The premier had in attendance several known faces such as Beverly Naya, Adunni Ade and Eku Edewor.
