The filmmaker again pushes the envelope of film production in Nigeria with the big budget October 1 opening in cinemas soon.
WEEKS ago when founder of the African Movie Academy Awards, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe described Kunle Afolayan as the poster boy of Nigerian cinema at the presentation of ‘Auteuring Nollywood’, a scholarly book on his ‘The Figurine’, some felt it was an overstatement.
The fact that she and the filmmaker are quite close also didn’t help matters with the conclusion being that she was subjective because of their friendship. But after seeing his forthcoming movie, ‘October 1’, we are left with no choice than to concur with Anyiam-Osigwe.
Afolayan continues to push the envelope and the amount of resources he commits to his movies is frightening. There is no half measure with this producer, he goes the whole hog. If you loved ‘The Figurine’ and ‘Phone Swap’ that came after it, you will find ‘October 1’, a psychological thriller irresistible.
Shot on locations in Lagos and Ilara-Mokin, Ondo State and featuring a predominantly Nigerian cast joined by Hollywood actors Nick Rhys, Lawrence Stubbings and David Reese, Afolayan fuses violence and humour seamlessly in this captivating film to entertain and educate.
‘October 1’ is about a northern Nigeria Police detective, Dan Waziri (Sadiq Daba), who is urgently dispatched by the colonial government to the trading post town of Akote in Western Nigeria, to solve a series of female murders that have struck horror in the hearts of the local community before the Nigerian flag is raised on October 1, Nigeria’s Independence Day.
On getting to Akote, more murders are committed with Waziri in a race against time, to solve the case before more local women are killed. Matters take a turn for the worse when Waziri discovers that his prime suspect is the highly influential, university-educated son of the King of Akote, Prince Aderopo (Ademola Adedoyin).
Intelligent, good-looking, charismatic, witty and daring, the prince proves to be a worthy adversary for Waziri; he engages the detective in a game of wits throughout.
But apart from telling Waziri’s story, the movie also explores issues including paedophilia- particularly the molestation of a boy by a priest, the suspicion among the country’s major ethnic groups and the deadly politicking under the colonial masters.
Unsurprisingly, there was spontaneous and sustained applause as the end credits rolled and the lights came on in the cinema hall at the recent press screening of the movie at Filmhouse, Surulere, Lagos. Afolayan has done it again was the consensus.
Answering questions from reporters later, the filmmaker said he decided to do a series of private screenings to recoup some of the money spent on the production before it opens in cinemas in October. That day’s screening was the fourth and was facilitated by Terra Kulture.
“We are certain that from these private screenings, we will be able to make some money also. This goes to subsidize our budget before we go public. Because once the film is out, it’s out,” Afolayan said.
He added that he has so far spent more than N200 million on the movie and that he needs to recoup this if he would make more quality films. “We shot on RED cameras. All those forest scenes were shot using two pieces of 12K HMI light; to rent one 12k costs between N80, 000 to N100, 000 per day, and we shot for about 60 days. We had more than 30 lights on that shoot altogether. We had about 100 casts and crew. Post-production costs more than N20 million, which is why the film looks good. We tried to maximise the potentials that we have in-house. By this, the only thing we did outside the country was colour correction and grading. We used two RED cameras, each one costing over N100, 000 a day.
“Also, look at the costumes for that period, look at the cars. We had to refurbish some of those cars to create that period and put them to use. There are electric poles, wires, transformers, billboards and masts all over the town. They were all removed at post-production and PFX costs fortunes,” he said of how the money was spent.
The reason for spending such a huge amount, he disclosed, “is that we believe strongly that there is potential for this kind of film. How many viewers do we really need to be able to recoup that money? It’s not a lot, and the good thing is that now, you have Filmhouse, whose cinema chain seems to be expanding every day. And they already said to me that by the time we are releasing it in October, they will be having like 20 screens, compared to the six that we had when we released ‘The Figurine’ and ‘Phone Swap’ and are aiming at grossing a million dollars at the cinema.”
Responding to a question on why he delved into paedophilia, rape and murder in the movie, screen writer, Tunde Babalola, said “As a writer, I want to delve into subjects that people don’t want to talk about. I don’t want to write things that people want to say. I would rather write about things that are controversial, and that which will get people talking for weeks.”