Ore Disu runs the Nsibidi Institute. Currently involved in the documentation of the Nigerian culture through the Memory Project, her film, The General, screened at this year’s edition of iREPRESENT International Documentary Film Festival in Lagos. She tells Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH, the story of the institute and its Memory Project.
In the documentary, The General, you focused on a family from South South Nigeria; is it that your work is basically on that region?
It was coincidence that it happened to be a family from Calabar, especially one from the Efik royal family. But really, we are actually looking nationwide; we are also interested in stories from the Nigerian Diaspora who have a way of shedding light on how we see ourselves as Nigerians, where all of that came from, our place in such a fast-changing world. So, to clarify, we are not focused on just Efik culture, we are really about the Nigerian society at large.
Is it just documentaries you do or you plan to do books?
We actually just published a book in January. Although we focus very much on culture, we see the Nigerian society as leading a lot more engagement beyond that. So, we look at other topics that are relevant to our development, our perception of ourselves, including focusing on urban centres and how we are shaping the spaces that have become the basis for our society. Also, when we talk about innovation, what is our approach to that to create things that respond to our own local condition and aspirations? So, culture, yes, but also development, urban issues and everything that we find relevant to the society at large.
What were some of the things that struck you in the course of making The General?
It was fascinating to meet a woman who had enlisted in the Biafran army. At that point, I didn’t even know that Biafra was producing its own petrol, had an industry set up. Which actually explains why they were able to last so long (in the war), especially being cut off from the supply network. So, for me, it was particularly interesting finding out that this lady who associated with so many different people was also quite inspiring. For me, we sometimes understand Nigerian tradition as very conservative. Women are supposed to be quite toned down; we are supposed to defer to our husbands. But here is a woman who comes from a very traditional setting in the sense that she was part of the royal family, so she had to portray its etiquettes and yet she didn’t feel any need to be demure; she didn’t bend over backwards. And that is part of her personality, and what I found out later is that it is also part of Efik culture. She is in herself a head of her own sub-family in the Efik kingdom and the question of her being a man or woman was not being raised.
What is your take on the Biafra issue?
We encourage critical questions. We don’t involve ourselves in politics, but we believe that if people have questions and have things to say, that should not be silenced because of something that is uncomfortable. I think that is one of the fundamental problems in how we approach Nigerian culture and knowledge.
But I would say that I don’t personally support that in the sense that I think that there are many disruptions that affect people at the end of the day. So if it is the case of taking it forward and saying, ‘look, let’s actually remember’, that is the importance of documentaries like this one. If you want to become a flag-bearer of a new movement, unless you really understand the impact it has on everyday people, I really don’t think you have any right to be in that position. So we are trying to let people know that it is not really about supporting any political agenda, either pro or anti, but to say, this is the impact it has on people. This is how they remember. The process of actually recovering from that trauma is important to also document as well. That is our contribution to this.
The documentary looked very professional; apparently, you worked with professionals to produce The General?
I have an aesthetic professional background, so to speak. One of the things that I find personally interesting is that there are so many ways of telling a story and I prefer the pen. I research, I write, but I think pictures are extremely powerful because there are so many things being communicated to you in a sensory manner. It was good to find people who had produced films before, but they weren’t really your up-market, fully-formed established cameramen or sound guys. They were really just people who are passionate, young and out to also make some money out of it. I suppose it was, on my own part, trying to study other films and say, okay, this is the form that I think works; finding an editor that understood that division and willing to work with me and realising it.
This is the fourth film we have made. The other ones are a lot shorter, but it is still an experiment and the next one we will do may be differently. We may involve a different cast altogether.
What about the other films?
They were – I don’t know if you know Remi Vaughn Richards; we actually sat with her and had a conversation to do with her own parents. Her father, an interesting personality, was an architect here in Nigeria; a British architect, came here, I believe in the 1950s, and was part of this movement on tropical architecture. This idea of having the modernist approach that was local in terms of the materials, consideration of environmental factors and also portraying the culture.
Sounds so much like Demas Nwoko.
Yeah, but then, her mother as well was a socialite of sorts. She was also one of the first nurses to be trained here and also established a nursing school herself. She was very vocal about environmental issues and I suppose because she was married to someone who was not a traditional Yoruba or conventional man in that sense, she got more opportunities to express herself. They used to have fashion shows in their yard. I thought that was very interesting. It started in a similar way of focusing on the personal history of her parents and then on into the actual process Remi Vaughn Richards went through in archiving their works.
Are these films part of the Memory Project?
They predate the Memory Project in the sense that we started filming mostly to tell the story of the institute and also found that, you know what, this is a very powerful format. Why not, why don’t we get people involved?
The General is actually part of the Personal History Series, while the Memory Project is a project of its own but is related in the sense that it is also focusing on the memory of the everyday ordinary Nigerian. The idea is really telling the story of Nigeria through the voices of the people who live them. It is not a filmmaker’s project; it is really for anyone – students, journalists, bloggers, photographers – to come on board and take your own devices; if you need help, we have some technical provision. We are also doing short training courses for people who want to take part.
