Up-and-coming filmmaker, Abiodun Olagbaju, who is working on a number of micro budget feature films, has said that his foray into film is a “drive towards excellent representation of complex realities of the human condition”.
In an interview with TheNiche, he said it is the reason for his choice of film as a means for storytelling.
Abiodun, who said one of his films, Chiral, is ready for release, and another one, 3L, is nearing completion and in post-production is a writer/director with The Cinema Place, a film company he founded.
From Ile-Ife in Osun State, the filmmaker studied agricultural science at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (UNAAB), Ogun State, after which he proceeded to National Film Institute (NFI), Jos, Plateau State.
“I am a filmmaker by training and conscious choice. I have an unyielding drive for storytelling, and with the realisation that audio-visual medium represents the most effective means, I opted to explore means of getting my kind of stories out there,” he said.
So where does he get the inspiration? His response is a list which includes his peculiar experience in life thus far.
There is also “unyielding curiosity in general; I’m in a flux towards understanding the human condition. However, on the outside, I waited for a considerable period for my kind of narratives; not finding one around here, I opted to create something my kind will appreciate. I only hope the society constitutes a lot of my kind.”
Perhaps, that is why so far his film projects have been funded from within with considerable support from colleagues as well before and behind the camera; “some for the credit, others on the grounds of deferred compensation”.
But there is no stopping this filmmaker who came out of a family of seven and who spends considerable time on his films.
“The (films) I have in the can have taken an average of two years each within which they have taken a root in me and have had to rethink them along the way,” he explained.
Prod him further, one finds that there is another reason he opted to be a filmmaker. “I hated the idea of mediocrity prevalent in our mainstream media platforms.”
He added: “It’s a long way coming with the penetration of internet between the twilight of 20th Century and the dawn of the 21st and the attendant access to creative information. I became an astute consumer of filmmaking information in all forms – written, oral, visual – then came the realisation that movie-making could be done better against the grain at home. So I applied and the rest is in the bowels of history. I am wondering why I have not arrived, but something tells me the ride has its reward,” he said.
This is going to be a long ride since he confesses to not having a back-up plan, even as he had dreamt of being an aeronautic engineer as a child and ended up studying agricultural science.
“Filmmaking is at my heart and it’s more than enough,” Abiodun, who has a short list mentors to include: Jimi Odumosu, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Stephen Spielberg, Stephen Soderberg, Mumini Kelani, Kunle Omojola and Spike Jonze, said.
