MOVIES
Yinka Olatunbosun
The Festival of Forgotten Films, an international Film festival is set to unearth outstanding films using the unique power of archival footage to drive their narrative. Ultimately, the goal is to raise key issues such as the relationship between archives, films and festivals and the impact of digital technologies.
With renewed efforts to rediscover Nigerian and African Cinema this July, the Lagos Film Society in collaboration with Modern Art Film Archive will present the 50-year old Things Fall Apart (1971) by Jason Pohland which was rediscovered from the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin at the Nigerian Film Corporation, Ikoyi on July 31. On August 1, Kongi’s Harvest (1970) by Ossie Davis will be screened alongside
Independencia (2015) by Mario Bastos, Spell Reel (2017) by Filipa Cesar and Handsworth Song (1987) by John Akomfrah. A special tribute will be given to late Nigerian film director and producer, Eddie Ugbomah on August 7 at the same venue with the theme “The Films of Eddie Ugbomah”. The legendary filmmaker directed and produced films such as the Rise and Fall of Oyenusi in 1979, The Boy is Good and Apalara, a film about the life and murder of Alfa Apalara in Oko Awo, Lagos. The plot of some of his films are loosely based on real life events.
The film screenings would be accompanied by open-air exhibition as a large-scale installation around the lively Tinubu Square.
This out-door exhibition has as curators the Berlin-based Akinbode Akinbiyi, a renowned photographer and Gisela Kayser, the Managing Director, Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus in Germany.
The Festival of Forgotten Films is directed by Didi Cheeka, the co-founder of Lagos Film Society. Cheeka curated the first international archive workshop, “Reclaiming History, Unveiling Memory” with the support of Goethe-Institut Nigeria and the British Council, Lagos. He is an active participant in the on-going discourse and actions to decolonise the archive and restructure power relations in the use and access to colonial audio-visual materials.
