“I wanted a revolution, but I realised that Africans don’t react to that.” When Mildred Okwo returned from the US as a lawyer turned filmmaker, her goal was to make activist movies that challenged the status quo. Her first movie was the politically charged 30 Days. However, the response she got was not as positive as she expected. The film had not sparked the debate she had been hoping for. Life in Nigeria was going on as usual. A different strategy was needed.
Mildred came to the following conclusion: “I feel like we have to deal with so much already living in this society. Most of the time, people are looking for ways to get away from their problems. So I took that into consideration and I decided, if I’m going to reach people with stories that talk of change, I have to find a better way. That’s why I started looking for stories that match what it is I want to say about the society.” She went on to start a production company, The Audrey Silva Company, in partnership with Nigerian superstar actress Rita Dominic.
A more accessible way for telling her stories was found by reaching a compromise and integrating comedy into her hard-biting storylines. Enter The Meeting, a movie that blended romance with political satire. Starring Femi Jacobs, as Mr Makinde, the movie centred around a contractor’s visit to a minister unmasking the deeply rooted corruption and rot pervading the Nigerian public service system. The movie ended up winning a slew of awards and turned its starring character played by Jacobs into a household name.
A few years later, after several months of publicity, The Audrey Silva Company released Surulere, whose title references a popular Yoruba phrase meaning Patience Pays. A movie that centres around the stark reality of a young man’s (Seun Ajayi) struggle to survive and keep to the right path in Nigeria’s harsh economy. Already in the second week after its release, the movie played to sold out audiences across cinemas in Lagos.
Mildred Okwo is not sure she has found a formula for making movies that both send a message and achieve commercial success. “I don’t know that we have a formula for promoting movies yet but I must agree that we are riding on the wave of The Meeting quite a bit,” she clarifies.
Okwo explains that it is easier because even before pre-production, they decide on exactly how they want the publicity and promotions to go. For Surulere, the phrase was already a popular social media/pop-culture slogan and they rode on it. “The good thing is that the phrase ‘Surulere’ is quite catchy and people have gone to see the film because of that. We made this film for a target audience and they are loving it, so it is fantastic. In that sense, I guess you could say we have a viable formula, we just need more funds to take our movies as wide as they ºshould go.”
She credits the writers she has worked with for bringing her scripts that speak to her. “Writers are very important to the process. If I read a script and I don’t like it, I won’t do it. It’s like the writers are talking to me and I am able to project what it is they’ve written and take it that much higher. That works.”
Okwo assembled her cast both through auditions and by hand picking them. “When I direct actors, I like to do most of the work before I get on set. I like to understand them perfectly before we start working to get the best out of them.” she says.
“For Surulere, I cast a few of them years ago; like Arinze, (Seun Ajayi) when I met him I wanted to work with him. I had him in mind since 2010. Same thing goes for‘Lala (Kemi Akindoju). I felt that a lot of directors didn’t understand Lala and when the opportunity came, I took it.”
The filmmaker has nothing but commendation for the cast of Surulere. “During the editing process, Carol Gikandi (the editor) spent quite a bit of time marvelling at their delivery and trying to make sure that we got all the nuances. I am a performance person; a good actor will take the story to the people. I will do shots when needed but I prefer the stories unfolding so it’s important that I have fantastic actors and I am able to mould them to reach where they want in terms of delivering their characters.”
On social media, especially Twitter, the filmmaker is very vocal. Taking on everything from politics and government to ‘the wrong red carpet questions’ to photoshoot actresses with no resumés and more, she is not shy about voicing her opinions. As a filmmaker, she tends to toe the same line; she still keeps to the strongest reason that took her into film making; exposing the corruption and wrong in her immediate society.
She made her first film after returning to live in Nigeria from a lengthy stay in the US. “I was living in the states for so long and didn’t come back for about 13 years at a stretch. When I came back, it was frustrating to say the least. I recall in 2003 seeing a lot of money thrown about by rich people and everybody else was just so poor. I saw a lot of state officials doing incredibly stupid stuff, incredibly, most of them have started preaching and acting like they’re saints now many years later.”
With 30 Days, Mildred wanted to bring Nigeria’s looters to the public eye, and to justice. “The first thing I did was to write a story… I wanted a revolution, I had to understand that here, we do not react to that. That’s not what moves them.”
She learnt to turn the exposés into societally introspective works. These days, Okwo is more concerned about telling a story contextually than sticking to a formula of storytelling. “Production wise I don’t know if I’m being formulaic or if it’s just a happy coincidence. The thing is that I just want to tell the stories about where I live. I don’t want to clean it up or lie about it. I just want to put most of the things in the context which I see them and the three stories I’ve told so far have come from my perspective of what I see in society,” she says.
She highlights the key role comedy plays in her work: “What I do is wrap the story up so that you’re laughing just because you really can’t cry. A lot of the things we are saying are really poignant.” Take for instance in Surulere we focus on people who don’t pay their workers. There’s lots of employers who will employ you for months and not pay. A lot of them sit on Twitter and go ‘blah’ but they owe workers who can’t do anything about it. I actually set out to put these things in there for us to learn and while you are learning you can laugh a little bit. When you make it too serious audiences are a little bit put off by it.”
A recurring theme in her movies is the idea that anyone can be beaten down by the system. She also pushes the themes of resilience and personal redemption. She explains: “In The Meeting, you have Mr Makinde who refuses to give a bribe just so that he can see the minister. You have Arinze in Surulere, his personal journey looks like a funny journey but in fact it is approaching several serious issues in our society.”
She references Toni Kan’s review of her movie and how he touched on the kind of revolution she preaches today: “Yes, it is about a revolution, a personal revolution. It’s not just about calling our leaders to change. It’s about making some of the changes ourselves.” For Mildred Okwo, that will do, for now…
By Oma Areh
