Award-winning filmmaker, Obi Emelonye, is set with a new movie titled Oxford Gardens. Shot in London, the film features Ngoli Okafor, a former boxing champion in United States; Ngozi Thompson Igwebike, Savanah Roy, Iffy Chukwu, Princess Abiye, Frank Ani, Nnenna Ani and D’Richy Emelonye.
It will be officially premiered on December 18, 2015.
Basking in the success of great films like The Mirror Boy, Last Flight to Abuja, Onye Ozi and Thy Will Be Done, the director/producer, who is renowned for championing causes with his themes in Nollywood, says he intends to be refreshingly different with this new work.
“I dig deep to explore stories that our young industry has ignored for one reason or another. In 2011, it was The Mirror Boy which attempted to see Africa through the eyes of a 12-year-old London-born African boy. Last Flight to Abuja a year later dealt with the glamorous world of aviation with its excitement, glitz and unfortunately, crashes. In all of these projects, I am seeking a new vista from which to see our common existence,” he said.
In Oxford Gardens, he said he had attempted to tell a moving love story, wrapped in boxing gloves.
“Nigeria has produced great boxers, old and new. However, for some reason, Nollywood has ignored stories around boxing in spite of boxing’s gritty nature that would lend itself easily to cinematography. Boxing films over the years have been hugely successful globally because they stir potent emotions in audiences, as the Rocky series and more recently Cinderalla Man and Southpaw have proved.
“Oxford Gardens is a film about boxing and not a boxing film. It takes some of the elements that make boxing films successful; sympathy for the underdog, blood, sweat, tears; and weaves them into a narrative that is an allegory for our broader fight for love, life and our place in the world,” Emelonye explained.
Emelonye said that as part of the story, there is a very important accident scene where a young girl is killed.
“I told my team that if we can make this scene work, with a level of visual realism and hence believability, then we would have made this great story special. So, we enlisted the help of the stunt co-ordination team that worked on big budget films like Skyfall and Johnny English. Their remit was, make this accident scene the best that has been seen in an African film. By God’s grace, they did succeed. I think, beyond the boxing and the moving medical elements in the film, ‘that accident scene’ would probably remain the longest lasting legacy for Oxford Gardens. You have to see it to believe it,” he stated.
The film is a collaborative work between the renowned filmmaker and Africa Magic, under the Africa Magic Original Films (AMOF) series.