‘The Man Died’ features at Costa Rica African & Diaspora Film Festival, Apr 23-May 18

* To be screened Wednesday, April 23

Screening Tuesday, May 13 at the 32nd New York African Film Festival (May 7-29)

By Editor

THE Man Died, the feature film inspired by Wole Soyinka’s prison notes of same title, has been selected to feature in the Costa Rica African & Diaspora Film Festival, holding April 23 through May 18, 2025. It will be screened on Wednesday, April 23. The festival is organised by the Foundation for Art and Culture for Development, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting Afro-descendant cultures in the Costa Rican region. A statement from Director/Co-Founder, iREP and Associate Producer of The Man Died, Mr. Jahman O. Anikulapo, said.

The letter of invitation, the executive director of the foundation, Dr. Carol Patricia Britton Gonzalez, stated that the film would be screened in the Limon province, the heart of the Afro-Costa Rican community and San Jose, the capital of the country.

“We are confident that your work will significantly contribute to our goal of amplifying Afro-descendant narratives, which are often absent from movie theatres, cultural centres and universities in Costa Rica,” wrote Dr. Gonzalez in the February 19 letter addressed to Femi Odugbemi, the producer of the film.

Gonzalez avers that the participation of the film will not only enhance the festival programme, “but also help strengthen connections between filmmakers and audiences across the Global South.” She promised that the film, which is already dubbed into Arabic and French, will also be subtitled in Spanish as a “token of appreciation for the participation, as well as to facilitate its circulation in their libero-American Festivals.”

Th Costa Rican outing is coming on the heels of the film’s strong showing at the 7th Jo’Burg Film Festival in March, where it won nomination in Best African Film, Best Editing and Best Film categories. Same March, while it was campaigning in South Africa, it recorded a successful outing at the Pan African University in Atlanta, US.

Meanwhile and in continuation of its global tour, The Man Died, has also been selected for the 32nd New York African Film Festival, holding from May 7 through May 29 and is co-presented with Film at Lincoln Center (FLC – May 7 – 13), Maysles Cinema (May 15 – 18), and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM – May 23 – May 29). The film will, however, be screened at the prestigious Film at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, May 13.

The 105-minute flick has been elected as a star attraction at the upcoming African Theatre Association (AfTA) annual conference holding in Stuttgart, Germany in July. It is also being considered for special screenings at educational institutions in Florence, Italy, Abu Dhabi in the UAE, New York University, Harvard University and at Ithaca College, all in the US, Oxford University in the United Kingdom, as well as at the House of World Culture in Berlin, Germany, among others. This is as it is also being reviewed by at least three major global streaming platforms, and international distribution channels.

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 Edmond 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.

The Man Died… the journey so far
THOUGH yet to be officially released to the market, The Man Died, 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, since its “special-premiere” in July in Lagos to mark the Nobel laureate dramatist, poet, essayist and human/civil rights activist, Soyinka’s 90th birthday, 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, 2024.

It began its global tour in London in July as part of the Wole Soyinka at 90 celebration jointly organized and hosted by the Africa Centre and the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange (WSICE). It returned to same 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, according to the synopsis on its website — www.themandiedmovie.com — is the story of Wole Soyinka’s 27 months 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 own 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.”

The director of the film, an actor, playwright, director of stage plays, films and curator of visual arts, Amkpa is 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), Amkpa is 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 theater, postcolonial theater, and Black Atlantic films.

The producer, an accomplished storyteller, content producer, filmmaker, and media scholar, Odugbemi is the Founder/CEO of Zuri24 Media Lagos, producers 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 Executive Producer of several popular TV soap operas, including Battleground, Brethren, Movement JAPA and Covenant, among others. Also, producer of several award-winning documentaries and feature films, Odugbemi is Co-Founder/Executive Director of the iREPRESENT 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.