Ferdinand Ekechukwu
The Surreal16 Collective, makers of “Juju Stories”, has announced that the anthology film (a subgenre consisting of several short films) will premiere at the 74th Locarno film festival in Switzerland. The festival is slated to hold from August 4-14, 2021. The collection will feature in the Locarno’s Concorso Internazionale, which is the festival’s main competition. With this announcement, the CJ Obasi, Abba T. Makama and Michael Omonua’s anthology film is finally set for release.
The group also released a one minute, twenty five seconds trailer which describes them as three urban legends, three directors. Confirming the report, co-director, CJ Obasi wrote: “Honoured to finally announce that our anthology film @jujustories, written and directed with my brothers from the @surreal16collective will World premiere in the Concorso Internazionale (Main competition) of the 74th @filmfestlocarno in August.”
The film explores superstitions and myth around ‘juju’ to include Obasi’s ‘Suffer the Witch’, Makama’s ‘Yam’ and Omonua’s ‘Love Potion’. For long, the producers kept under wraps detailed official materials for the sophomore anthology feature film. “We are taking it slowly, so we can tease the audience.
But it is essentially an anthology feature film comprising of three stories exploring ‘juju’ and supernatural tales from contemporary Nigeria,” C.J Obasi, one of the makers explained earlier following a one on one chat with this reporter. The first teaser shows off an exciting cast including Timini Egbuson, Adebukola Oladipupo, Paul Utomi, Belinda Agedah Yang, Adebukola Oladipupo, Elvis Poko, Nengi Adoki, Seun Kentebe, amongst others.
In striking fast paced visual offering, each sequence of the teaser gives a face to each subgenre of the series and repeatedly shows the characters in various modes in the upcoming stories rooted in folklore and urban legend.
The shots, devoid of dialogue, show a semblance of an Ifa priest in the first scene. In a follow-up scene, a young man appears to be running out of danger. Shot by Femi Awojide, the Surreal16 Collective production thrives on the intents to create artistically minded films that move away from the reigning domination of Nollywood aesthetics and production practices. Produced by Francis Nebot, Oge Obasi, and Adaugo Uzoma, audience would have to rely much on visual details to connect with the narratives in this body of works.
