By Nehru Odeh
“The Man Died,” the biopic adapted from Professor Wole Soyinka’s prison memoir with the same title, has been nominated for the award of “Best Feature Narrative” at the 33rd Pan African Film Festival, which will be held in Los Angeles, United States, between 4 and 17 February 2025.
The film will be screened at the festival on February 12 and 14. This year’s festival theme is” Dream Beyond.”
This feat is the latest addition to the string of accomplishments of the film, which has so far won three awards, including the latest at the 14th Luxor African Film Festival in Upper Egypt, earlier this month, where it won “Best African Film That Tackle An Important African Issue.
Before Luxor, the film had clinched Best Screenplay trophies at both the African International Film Festival, AFRIFF, (November 3-9, Lagos), and at the 35th Carthage International Film Festival, held November 14-21 in Tunis. It also won the Best Audience Choice Award at the Eastern Nigeria International Film Festival, ENIFF, Enugu, November 27-30.
The biopic’s latest accomplishment was made known via a letter signed by Miki Goral, the festival’s Filmmaker Liaison & Research Director, on behalf of the PAFF directorate.
The letter, dated January 28, 2025, reads in part: “I am happy to inform you that The Man Died has been nominated for the “juried Best Feature Narrative at the Pan African Film Festival.”
An earlier letter from the directorate had hinted that the 105-minute feature will be screened on February 12 and 14 at the Culver Theatre, Culver City, California. It is the film’s first appearance in the United States, having done London, UK twice, and North Africa twice, among others.
Established in 1992 by Hollywood veterans Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Lethal Weapon), the late Ja’Net DuBois (“Good Times”), and Ayuko Babu, the Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF) has, according to its website, remained “dedicated to the promotion of Black stories and images through the exhibition of film, visual art, and other creative expression.
For over 30 years, PAFF has been the international beacon for the African diaspora film and arts communities. Every year, it showcases over 200 new high-quality Black films from the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, the South Pacific, Canada, and increasingly, Asia. Thirty-five of the hundreds of entries from 150 countries, competed in various categories of the final stage of the festival founded in 2010.
The film 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; as well as international actors, London-UK-based Christiana Oshunniyi (Laide Soyinka), and Los Angeles, USA-based Abraham Awam-Amkpa (Johnson), among others.
Meanwhile in continuation of its global tour, The Man Died, has also been selected for the Jo’Burg Film Festival, to be held March 11-16. It is being considered for special screenings at educational institutions in Florence, Italy; Abu Dhabi in the UAE; Oxford University, UK, as well as at New York University, Harvard University, and Ithaca College, all in the USA, among others. It is also being reviewed by at least three major global streaming platforms and international distribution channels.
As the critically acclaimed largest Black film and arts festival and Black History Month activation in the United States, PAFF brings together filmmakers, artists, and unique craftspeople from over 40 countries and six continents to Los Angeles annually, to showcase their pivotal work and talent. PAFF has become the quintessential global celebration of Pan-African cultures.
Though yet to be officially released, “The Man Died” was, written by UK-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, to mark the Nobel laureate’s 90th birthday. It has 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.
The film began its global tour in London in July as part of the Wole Soyinka at 90 celebrations jointly organized and hosted by the Africa Centre and the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange, WSICE. It returned to 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.
Produced by Zuri 24 Media, The Man Died is the story of Wole Soyinka’s 27 months of 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 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.”
Awam Amkpa, the director of the film, is an actor, playwright, director of stage plays, films and curator of visual arts He is also 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 a 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 theatre, postcolonial theatre, and Black Atlantic films.
Femi Odugbemi, the Producer, is an accomplished storyteller, content producer, filmmaker, and media scholar. He is the Founder/CEO of Zuri24 Media Lagos, the producer 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 the Executive Producer of several popular TV soap operas, including Battleground; Brethren; Movement JAPA, and Covenant, among others.
Producer of several award-winning documentaries and feature films, Odugbemi is Co-Founder/Executive Director of the I REPRESENT 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.