Why I Shot Mirror Boy in Gambia – Emelonye

Daily Independent (Lagos)

Ovwe Medeme

30 June 2011

interview

Footballer, lawyer and celebrated moviemaker, Obi Emelonye, has the flick Mirror Boy to his credit. Profiled twice by CNN, it has won AMAA for the best young actor for the Ugandan boy. The flick has also been nominated for the Best Nigerian Film at the Nigerian Entertainment Awards and has been nomination as the best Pan African Actor with showings at the Cannes and Monaco Film Festival among others. Ready to berth in Nigeria, Emelonye had a chat with Snr. Reporter, Ovwe Medeme on the film and other interesting topics. Excerpts:

Of all things you can do, why movie production?

I studied Theatre Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nnsuka, and have been practising even during my youth service days. I served at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Calabar. When my football wasn’t taking shape, I started doing postgraduate courses in scriptwriting, editing, directing, production planning, production management and generally trying to widen my skill. To be a good director, you have to know every aspect of production. One might not be an expert in it but you have to know enough. The more varied my training was the better I became at making films.

Mirror Boy has received global acclaim. What magic did you put into making the film?

I think I am not doing anything different today than I was doing a few years ago. I put in the same level of effort and dedication. I shot my first film in 1999 and it was called Good Friends. It was shot in London. I also shot some films while in Nigeria. Life is all about timing. If I had made this film about three years ago, nobody would have heard about it. It touched the right nerve, the timing is right, the work almost is right and it shows a certain advancement in the level of creative qualities that we have in Nigerian films. It was a Nigerian idea that has been given a wider and more global acceptance.

What captured your fancy in the Mirror Boy story?

First of all, I needed to address the shortage of children films in Nollywood. Films that mirror the perspective of children are in short supply in the industry. Majority of the films are centred on adult, which is why the kids don’t bother to watch. I wanted to make a story from their own perspective, and in doing so see if I can bring them back and it succeeded. In the cinemas in the UK, there were more young people than there were old and they found a connection with the film, which is the whole idea. Secondly, I wanted to explore the concept of the disconnection between Africans born in Nigeria and Africans born in the Diaspora. A lot of children born in Diaspora suffer identity crisis. They don’t know where they belong. At home they are Nigerians but at school, they are British and this sounds very confusing. I tried to paint a picture of Africa as not this wonderful place where everything works, but still it is where we come from.

How did you end up shooting in The Gambia as against Nigeria?

I am not from Gambia so I couldn’t have written a Gambian story. I wrote the script for Nigeria. It was intended to be shot at Obudu Ranch, Cross River State. I went there, did the research, came back to Cross River State to speak with the Commissioner for Tourism to tell him that the film will help put the state in good spotlight and help the world understand what is happening in the state. I wrote a proposal to that effect seeking logistic support but they turned us down. A friend of mine who also acted in the film advised me to come over to The Gambia to shoot the film. So I went there with a list of locations and other things that we would need. She took the request to the President of the country and he approved it. When I went to the country, I met with the President, the Vice President and other ministers. They gave me all the support that I needed. I then took the crew from Nigeria and from London to The Gambia and we made the film there. They gave us 17 hotel rooms for three weeks, cars, security and licence to shoot anywhere we wanted in town and that is what every filmmaker prays for. They gave us the support and they benefitted immensely from it. Today, the film has been to festivals all over the world and has won an award for Genevieve as the Best Breakthrough Actress. Wherever it goes, it takes the name of Gambia with it.

As a writer, what would you say makes a good script?

Imagination makes a good script. I say this because even if you are basing your story on real life, you have to make it interesting and the only way to make it interesting is to have the imagination and the depth of creativity to work a story. There is an art to storytelling and it lies in knowing that art, knowing when to start, knowing what to give, knowing how to keep suspense and how to tell the end. Story telling is a skill and that skill is simply transferred from telling it orally to writing it down and making people act it.

Would you say that growing up reflects in what you are doing today?

My father was an artist. He was a creative persona and he was into advertising and publicity. I think a bit of that is in me. He always told me while growing up that I could do things above average. He knew that one day I would end up in the creative art but while I was growing up, I started seeing myself more as a footballer than as a filmmaker. I started playing football after my university, not because I didn’t want to play while I was in school but because Nnsuka was in the middle of nowhere. I had always seen myself as a known star but I never saw myself at this stage where my film will be showing in cinemas across the world.

How did you manage the transition from football to music?

One of the things my father used to tell me when I was young was that the most gifted are sometimes the most confused. It was a warning that kept ringing in my ears. As I was growing up, I discovered that I could do a lot of things above average and I could have chosen any career but the difficulty with someone in my position is that you end up being good in everything but not really a specialist. At some point, I needed to diversify. I knew football is a short career. You can only play it till you are 45. When I came to the UK, I had issues with international clearance and papers and by the time I got all of those, I had lost the interest in playing football.

In your opinion, is there a point where football meets movies?

Football meet movies when the camera is crossing your face and you have to live up to expectations. They are both show business. There is a hard work part of it and there is also the show biz part of it. The hard work part is the craft, the training, the exhaustion of working around, but there is also the show biz element of being an idol, a source of inspiration or a mentor of younger people.

Who did you get to cast the roles for the flick?

Casting some of the roles was easier than others. Osita Iheme is a Nollywood great. I was looking for an actor that would bring out the cheekiness, the mischief in that Mirror Boy character, and Osita did that. To show how well he did, he was nominated for the first time in a substantive role at the AMAA awards. It was great to have him recognised on that level. He got a nomination for Lifetime Achievement Award. For Edward Kagutuzi, who played the London boy, we were looking for a 12-year-old boy with experience and that was difficult. After three auditions, we didn’t find anybody until an agent sent us a picture of this Ugandan boy. He was 19 at the time but looked younger than that. We brought him in and he was perfect and we have been vindicated because he has gone on to win the AMAA awards. He has also been nominated in the Nigerian Entertainment Awards. I am happy that my film has given him that opportunity to become a star.

Did you face any difficulty getting Genevieve to take part in the flick?

Genevieve was one of the easiest casts I had. She is very wholehearted and very committed. She has been described as the Julia Roberts of Africa. If she plays a prostitute you will think she has been doing that all her life. She is beautiful at the same time, but unfortunately, this role wasn’t central. She normally plays the main focus of action but with Mirror Boy, she is not, the boy is. She told me that the reason she took it is that she saw where I wanted to take the film and she felt I shared her ideologies about taking African films forward.

Tell us a bit about your family background

I hail from Imo State. I am from a family of eight children, seven boys, and a girl. I am a twin. My twin brother is also a lawyer who works for the UN as a Human Rights Officer in Rome. I have siblings spread across the world. My mother is in her late 70s enjoying her time and all her hard work.

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