It has now been confirmed that the long awaited Tony Abulu film, Doctor Bello will premiere on Sunday, November 25, at the Genesis Deluxe Cinema, The Palms, Victoria Island, Lagos. Parading both Hollywood and Nollywood stars, the premiere, which will open with a special yellow carpet reception at 4pm, has the strong backing of MTN Nigeria, with support from Mnet, AfricaMagic, StanbicIBTC Bank and Sovereign Trust Insurance.
Aside top celebrities and stakeholder in the showbiz industry billed for the evening, delectable Nollywood queens, Genevieve Nnaji and Stephanie Okereke-Linus, who featured in the movie, are expected to grace the yellow carpet in style, alongside other cast. For now, it has not been confirmed it their Hollywood counterparts in the movie such as Isaiah Washington, Vivica A. Fox, Jimmy Jean Louis, Victor Browne, Ebby Bassey, Bern Cohen and others will be at the Lagos event. An after party at the Eko Hotel, Victoria Island, will follow the screening.
The Nigeria screening is a follow up to the star-studded première at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Washington DC, United States, where movie freaks got the opportunity to be among the first set of audience to see the movie.
“This is Nollywood, which is basically Nigerian filmmaking combined with Hollywood. It’s important for us to reach across the pond to combine our two talents together because I have a feeling that Hollywood doesn’t allow African-American actors and actresses the roles that we should be playing. I play Isaiah Washington’s wife, and we lost our daughter to cancer in the film, which then sends him out on a crusade to cure cancer. I’ve known Isaiah for over 25 years and we had never gotten an opportunity to work together,” star actress Vivica Fox said at the Washington DC premiere.
In a chat with the co-producer of the movie Tunde MacAlabi, he informed that Nexim Bank provided part funding for Doctor Bello, while the production team sourced the remaining fund.
“There has been conflicting report in the media over the exact amount provided by Nexim. Let me make it clear that Nexim gave us $250,000 for the production; we sourced the remaining part of the fund privately. Today, we are glad to bring the movie home. This is the first Nigerian movie to be premiered in multiple countries,” MacAlabi noted.
Meanwhile, Doctor Bello will open screening at the African International Diaspora Film Festival in New York, on November 23, before heading for London, at the Greenwich Odeo on November 30. It will be the turn of Johannesburg to see the movie on December 6, at the Fringe, Joburg Theatre, while plans are afoot to take the movie to other parts of the globe.
Brilliant Cancer specialist Dr. Michael Durant is emotionally troubled, wrestling with the traumatic loss of his 10-year-old daughter from Cancer. Immersing himself in his work in the hospital, away from his wife who blames him for their child’s death, he forms an unlikely bond with a sick, loving, but rambunctious seven-year old boy Sam, the son of a rich Jewish couple, who are major contributors to the Hospital’s Cancer Research Fund.
Unfortunately, Sam’s health deteriorates drastically, and soon, he slips into a coma, with only a few days to live. Dr. Durant becomes desperate, willing to risk anything to save the child’s life. A surreptitious Nigerian Nurse convinces him to seek the help of Dr. Bello, an uncertified Nigerian Doctor, known in the Brooklyn-African underground as a miracle worker. Dr. Bello, an introvert with a controversial past, secretly visits the child at night and administers a strange African potion, replete with incantations and by the next morning, miraculously, the child begins to recover, the Cancer speeding into remission. The Hospital Medical Board immediately orders an investigation and soon the secret is revealed and Dr. Durant is suspended.
Dr. Bello is arrested and charged with medical malpractice. Dr. Durant soon falls into depression after his wife leaves him. Meanwhile, Dr. Bello has fallen critically ill in jail and can only be saved by the ingestion of the same potion that can only be found in the mysterious “Garden of Life,” nestled on the peak of Nigeria’s sky mountains.