‘The Man Died’… in Carthage film Festival, Tunisia, Dec 14-21

Award-winning film, The Man Died, a feature film inspired by Wole Soyinka’s prison notes of same title, continues its global tour with a three-some screening romp at the Cartharge Film Festival, which began on December 14, and will end 21st in Tunisia.  This is as it is also slated to be at Luxor International Film Festival, Egypt in January.

According to a schedule released by the organisers of Carthage, the film will be screened at L’Opera Cinema on Sunday, December 15; at ABC on Monday, 16th and at Amilcar on the 17th — to a diverse audience of international festival attendees and the local audiences.

Founded in 1966, Carthage Film Festival (Journées cinématographiques de Carthage, or JCC), one of the oldest film festivals in the world, is renowned for attracting large casts of the best of global cinema family. It is reputed to champion the cause of African and Arab countries and enhancing Global South cinema in general. Organised by a committee peopled by professionals of the cinema industry, chaired by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture, the festival which began  as a biennial, alternating with the Carthage Theatre Festival, became an annual event in 2014. Its main prize is the Golden Tanit named after the Carthaginian goddess Tanit. The 2024 festival is directed by Sonia Chamkhi, who has been on the seat since 2022.

Though yet to be officially released to the market, The Man Died, which since its “special-premiere” in July in Lagos to mark the Nobel laureate dramatist, poet, essayist and human/civil rights activist, Soyinka’s 90th birthday, has already won two awards – Best Screenplay Award at the 2024 African International Film Festival, AFRIFF, (November) and; Best Audience Choice Award at the Eastern Nigeria International Film Festival, ENIFF.

Written by London-United Kingdom-based Bode Asiyanbi, directed by New York-US and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates-based Awam Amkpa and produced by Lagos, Nigeria-based Femi Odugbemi for Zuri24 Media, The Man Died stars a coterie of renowned names on the Nigerian screen, including Wale Ojo as Wole, Sam Dede as Yisa, Norbert Young (Prison Superintendent), Francis Onwochei(Prison Controller and Edmund Enaibe as Commissioner; and international actors, London-UK-based Christiana Oshunniyi (Laide Soyinka), and Los Angeles, USA-based Abraham Awam-Amkpa (Johnson), among others.

The film, continues to garner global critical acclaims, and is already programmed for Luxor International film Festival, Egypt in January;  Jo’Burg Film Festival, SA (February); African Film Festival, New York, US (March), and FESPACO in Burkina Faso (March), among others. This is as it is also being reviewed by at least three major global streaming platforms, and international distribution channels.

It is being as being considered for special screenings at educational institutions in Florence, Italy; Abu Dhabi in the UAE; Jo’Burg, South Africa as well at Harvard University, Oxford University, and at Ithaca College, all in the USA, among others.

The film began its global tour in London in July as part of the Wole Soyinka at 90 celebration jointly organized and hosted by the Africa Centre and the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange, WSICE. It returned to same London in October as part of the African Film Festival, and also had an educational screening at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. It was screened on October 11 on the ‘Accra Streamfest’ bill of the “Labone Dialogues”, hosted by New York University, NYU Accra.

The film has also had a series of home runs including on October 5 at the Quramo Festival of Words, QFest 2024, Lagos; and the Lagos Book & Art Festival, LABAF on November 14.

Produced by Zuri 24 Media, The Man Died, according to the synopsis on its website — www.themandiedmovie.com — is the story of Wole Soyinka’s 27 months incarceration by the Nigerian government in 1967 at the cusp of the civil war. He was famously seeking a truce between Biafra and the Federal Government to allow time for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. It is fundamentally a personal account. Essentially, the subject found refuge from the brutality inflicted upon him by retreating into and living within his own mind. At times, he drifted about the frontiers of madness, hanging on to himself by a thread. At other times, he pondered, listened, and watched, like only the truly otherwise unoccupied can. Importantly, he managed to scrounge paper and a pencil from time to time and record his journey of ‘motionlessness.”

The director of the film, an actor, playwright, director of stage plays, films and curator of visual arts, Awam Amkpa is a Nigerian-American professor of drama, film, and social and cultural analysis at the New York University in New York and Abu Dhabi. Author of Theatre and Postcolonial Desires (Routledge, 2003), Awam is director of film documentaries and curator of photographic exhibitions and film festivals. He has also written several articles on representations in Africa and its diasporas, representations, and modernisms in theater, postcolonial theater, and Black Atlantic films.

Interview:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSqp6Z0XsuE&feature=youtu.be

The Producer, an accomplished storyteller, content producer, filmmaker, and media scholar, Femi Odugbemi is the Founder/CEO of Zuri24 Media Lagos, producers of the film. His screen credits over 25 years in the creative industries span feature films, multiple drama TV series and documentaries. He was one of the founding producers of the daily soap opera Tinsel as well as Executive Producer of several popular TV soap operas, including Battleground; Brethren; Movement JAPA, and Covenant, among others. Also, producer of several award-winning documentaries and feature films, Odugbemi is Co-Founder/Executive Director of the IREPRESENT International Documentary Film Festival Lagos and a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.