Silverain, Juliet Asante’s first feature film, will open in Nigerian cinemas on May 29. At a private screening of the pan-African love drama at Freedom Park, Lagos on Thursday, May 7, Asante, who played the role of Brenda Mensah on Tinsel on inception, talked about her new film and sundry issues in this interview with Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH.
Did working on Deadly Voyage with Omar Epps wow you?
I was very young and starting my career. I think it had a lot to do with the moulding of my perception and what I wanted to do as a filmmaker. It was a Hollywood production, a great feature film and a real story too of Ghanaians trying to stowaway and they got killed on a ship. I think that also speaks to addressing issues through film. I have had conversations where I have said that many of us having travelled, maybe we haven’t been to America, but our image of what America is, the strength of America is through its films; whether it is Rambo or Chuck Norris or whatever. That is why when we think of America, we think of powerful Americans. Films with powerful Americans holding the American flag and doing amazing things. And I think that, as Africans, we have the responsibility to use our films as a tool to sell ourselves, to connect and tell people about us. If we get a chance to work on productions like that, it does help.
But are African films painting Africa in positive light?
First of all, there is a business side of filmmaking, and even I as a filmmaker, if I forget or ignore the business side of filmmaking, I am a dead filmmaker. So the entertainment and business sides of it must be very high. I think that most of our stories seek to kind of portray who and what we are. I think where the gaps are is the packaging. You might have a good story, but if you don’t package it well, it might not come across because it is communication. The vehicle on which you put that message is very important. The way it gets to the end user is very important. So if you don’t package it right, by the time it gets there, the person’s mind is closed towards it. And I think those are some of the things that have affected us.
Is that why you went to Harvard for your master’s degree, on how to better package your films?
Yes, I did go to Harvard; but I am somebody who is very interested in policy, and I did business at some point. So there are many things I am interested in. For me, at a point, I just wanted to take a break and prepare for this story, and part of taking the break I said let me go and build myself up, let me go and nurture my soul because I had been in the system for a while. I had been doing television programming for a while and there was a lot I could learn because I am a student of life and we should always be seeking to learn. So I went back to school. I went back to Harvard because it was an opportunity for me to learn and I did that.
Would you go back there for a Ph.D?
Possibly.
How is your work with Franklin Cudjoe on empowering more women?
It has been doing well. That is something I have been involved in for a long time; empowering women. But it is a struggle that one person cannot do all. It is a collective effort and I think that when you look at Africa and where we have come from, we have achieved a lot, but there is still a lot more we can achieve. As you can see, in Silverain, there is a very strong female character, but I think that, most importantly, in the struggle for women empowerment, we need the men, the male voices, even more. And as you can see in this story, she couldn’t have done it without the male support. So as we look for female empowerment on the continent, there are some men that are critical and are available for that journey, and they are silent. We need to acknowledge their contribution to the struggle. Part of that is what Silverain does.
Why did you leave Tinsel?
It was a great production, but I at a point I felt that I had outgrown it. It was beautiful when we started and I loved being part of it, putting it together. But at a certain point, I had to make a choice between Tinsel and something else that was present before I took on Tinsel. And it became even stronger in my life. It is a choice that I had to make and I must say that I am happy I made that choice.
Have you kept tabs with the production after you left?
I have; I mean, Femi Odugbemi continues to be one of my greatest friends, and from the beginning when I started to work on Silverain, I went to him as a mentor and he would even, technically, be like, ‘what do you think of this or that camera?’ He has been present and helpful. He has continued to do great works. I have also been in touch with the actors.
It appears that after you left, most of the Ghanaians also walked out; was that planned?
No, the Ghanaians were on it for a while. I left early.
It appears to have more Nigerians now than actors from any other country?
Yeah, well, I don’t want to go into Tinsel because the producers know what they are doing and I am not privy to the information, so I cannot speak on the choices they have made. Whether the choices have helped the production or not is not for me to say, but I am sure when they made the decision they made, they had very good reasons for making those decisions.
How easy was it to bring together the cast for Silverain that encompasses actors from different parts of Africa?
That was one of the most difficult things we did. First of all, casting from all of these countries is not easy. We had to try and reach out to these countries; we knew no one there. To find the artistes, we had to try and find their managers and get them to agree. There were several times when artistes got to the airport and decided: I don’t want to go to Ghana or West Africa. We had the first artiste from Nigeria on a different project that interfered with our timeline; and even getting the technical team together (was not easy) because we are shooting with a red camera, and the skill is not everywhere. Most importantly, getting people together who understood what we wanted to do and communicating that and trying to keep everyone together despite the difficulties wasn’t easy, but I must say that things fell into place and we did it.
This is not an individual effort; what you see with Silverain I am here speaking, but it is not about me. I mean, the cast, the crew were all amazing. I was lucky and all I did was to be able to identify the strength and bring it together and keep it as a collective throughout the process. There were many times when it looked like the seams were going to come apart because the issues were too many, but at the end of the day, putting the team together was critical. In fact, we shot with two separate technical teams; we shot with the West Africa technical team when we shot in Ghana. We went to South Africa and assembled a new crew. It was quite an interesting journey, but we got there.