Unchained Vibes Africa is thrilled to present Freedom Vibes 9.0 at this year’s edition of Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF), a groundbreaking event celebrating the unyielding power of art as a beacon of hope.
This special gathering is expected to unite the artistic community, cultural enthusiasts, and the public to witness the premiere of “Nanle”, an inspiring new music video by Tijani Usman (Tijay Webster), winner of the 2023/2024 Freedom Vibes Academy session.
Additionally, Freedom Vibes will pay tribute to the legendary Professor Wole Soyinka for his lifelong dedication to artistic freedom and human rights.
After AFRIFF, The Man Died is billed for a special screening on Wednesday November 13 at the Agip Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan Lagos as part of the Lagos Book & Art Festival, LABAF, which had declared its 2024 season “The Soyinka Year,” and dedicated its 26th edition to celebrating the eminent life and illustrious career of the renowned poet, dramatist, essayist, novelist human and civil rights activist, famously referenced as the “Global Humanist.” Described as the “biggest Cultural Picnic on the continent of Africa”, the one-week LABAF is exploring the theme, BREAKOUT: Hope is a Stubborn Thing, with over 60 events staged at its traditional venue, Freedom Park, Lagos Island and virtually.
The Man Died documentary will also feature as the ‘Opening Film’, at the Eastern Nigeria International Film Festival, ENIFF in Enugu on November 27. Inspired by the long history Eastern Nigeria has with Nollywood and the African Storytelling industry, ENIFF 2024 explores the theme, “Reimagine,” focusing on how storytelling can reshape narratives and drive social impact.
Since its first screening on July 12 in Lagos to mark the Nobel laureate’s 90th birthday (July 13), The Man Died had been abroad; July at the Africa Centre, London as part of a 9-day feast to commemorate Soyinka’s 90th birthday anniversary; it returned home on October 5 as part of the Quramo Festival of Words, QFest. It had then gone abroad, featuring in October at the ‘Streamfest’ segment of the Labone Dalogues of the New York University in in Accra, Ghana. It returned to London later October to feature at the Film Africa Festival, FAF, with an educational shot at the University of East Anglia, Norwich; and at the Streamfest of the ‘Labone Dialogues’ (Oct, 11, New York University, NYU Accra).
Though yet to be formally released to the public cinema circuits or online streaming platforms, the film has been garnering volumes of critical acclaims, and in the review gaze of such top-notch global cinematic gatherings as the Berlinale in Germany, Catharge in Algeria, Jo’Burg Film Festival, SA; African Film Festival, New York, US, and FESPACO in Burkina Faso, among others. This is as it is also being reviewed by at least three major global streaming platforms, and international distribution channels.
The various screenings, “are part of the strategic agenda to make the film register its impact in the two most important target audiences — Festival circuits and Educational institutions before it hits the commercial phase — theatre screening and online streaming,” stated the promoters, the Foundation for the Promotion of Documentary Films in Africa, FPDFA, otherwise known as the iREPRESENT International Documentary Film Forum, iREP.
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, Awam 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), Awam 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.
