Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka’s life is the subject of a new, and first-ever, film documentary narrative, being released during a public presentation in Lagos in the evening of Sunday March 25 at the Shell Hall of the Muson Centre in Onikan Lagos.
Produced by Back Page Productions, a company based in Ikeja, Lagos, the film with the title Time’s Voyager had been in production for over two years accumulating several hours of film footage which were edited and compressed into a straight, approximately one-hour narrative.
Time’s Voyager is subtitled Wole Soyinka’s Journeys in Literature and Politics and it takes it viewers back to 1859 Egbaland during which the seeds of nationalism which eventually built up to the Nigerian independence were sown. 1859 was also the year in which Nigeria’s first newspaper was established by the missionary and journalist, Henry Townsend.
According to the film’s narrative, Egbaland became “a hotbed of local and national politics”. It also has features that sound as follow: “it was a place where the women were learning to say, no”. The latter phrase a direct reference to the struggles of the women of Egba led by Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti whom the documentary credits with being the first Nigerian woman to drive a motor-car.
Mrs. Kuti who was later responsible for the disposition of the Alake of Egba, Sir Ladapo Ademola (later reinstated) was also the aunt of the film’s subject, Wole Soyinka.
The film’s producer Dapo Adeniyi, a frontline journalist who also heads Back Page Productions believes that so much ought to have been done which have been left severely undone. His company is also the producer of the feature film adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s autobiographical novel, Ake: The Years of Childhood which is still in pre-production.
Adeniyi says: “We have made a good attempt to re-present the man Wole Soyinka who swam in the twin rivers of literature and politics and has become not only a model in our national setting but also an icon all around the world”.
He went further to say,
“I have been privileged to have two spirited interviews with Professor Wole Soyinka, twenty years apart. I recorded the first hour-long interview with him in Ile-Ife just before his time at the university expired in an early retirement, in 1985. The second interview is the actual beginning of the current documentary we are about to launch, which is Time’s Voyager”.
Adeniyi’s second exhaustive interview with the Professor was duly filmed. It contained the depth and the no-holds-barred nature of the 1985 interview and was filmed in the writer’s home resort on the outskirts of Abeokuta. It is very interesting that the film records Professor Soyinka reading from some of his writings including Ake: The Years of Childhood and poems “Abiku” and “Koko Oloro” from the collection of poetry Idanre and Other Poems.
There are also months of filming in the townscapes of Abeokuta, with additional footages recorded in Ibadan and Ile-Ife.
Voices and faces featuring in the new documentary include history Professor Obaro Ikime and former Soyinka students and life-long associates among whom are Biodun Jeyifo, professor of English at the University of Harvard, Femi Osofisan the well-known playwright, actor Jimi Solanke (who openly confesses in Time’s Voyager to being the unsuspected Soyinka accomplice during the famous radio hold-up saga in the NBC studios in Ibadan in 1965, for which Soyinka was arrested, charged and acquitted by a judicial court.
Other insightful appearances include Professor Ayo Banjo a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan and the poet Odia Ofeimun.
The film shows off very interesting footages of Professor Soyinka decades ago giving lectures, speaking up against injustice and expounding on issues in African literature, culture and politics.
Time’s Voyager is described by the producers as a prelude to the much-larger feature film Ake. On the crew of Ake are some of Nigeria’s brightest and best in the movie industry including the production designer Pat Nebo, director of photography Tunde Kelani and London-based screenwriter Tunde Babalola.
Back Page Productions’ presentation of Time’s Voyager is in collaboration with two leading companies in the cultural arena: Quintessence and Terrakulture both based on the Lagos Island.
Expected at the presentation are the governors of Lagos and Ogun states, Senators Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Otunba Gbenga Daniel.
The presentation which is strictly by invitation will be concluded with an auction designed to promote the film which is not yet available for sale or distribution any other way.
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