Nollywood film director Tunde Olaoye has made his mark on the Nigerian film scene. In recent times, Olaoye has taken his time to start filming biopics with three different productions already concluded. Some of his achievements include ‘Last Man Standing,’ ‘Yahaya the white lion,’ and ‘Awujale.’ In this interview with The Nation’s ASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR GBENGA BADA, Olaoye opens up on why he is on a mission of filming biopics amidst other issues.
What inspired you to be a part of this movie?
I was actually inspired by the autobiography of Awujale written by Oba Sikiru Adetona himself, where he explained a lot of things about what people consider as controversial because he is one king that is known in Nigeria to be different from most of the other kings we have around. He is a king who believes that traditional rulers should not be relegated to dancing to the whims and caprices of the government. He’s been king ever since the colonial days and record has it that he is the longest serving first-class traditional ruler in Nigeria right now because he has been king since 1959 even before the is independence. Ever since then he has always gotten into trouble with one government or the other, even during the military days and the civilian rules too, because he is someone who believes that he is not supposed to bow to government. He is an avid protector of the traditional institution. He believes that the fact that the state government or the local government pays the salary of the Oba’s does not mean that Obas are civil servant who must always obey politicians, many of whom are even accidental leaders. Many of them became leaders as a result of a parents or maybe someone they know. He believes that the traditional rulers should never be relegated. I think he has stood out amongst many other kings in Nigeria especially the Obas in Yoruba land. We know about his history during the Abacha days when they said he was the only king that did not go to Aso Rock to talk to Abacha. He is a king who believes that he should not bow to the government of the day because he is a principality in his own right too.
Why is it important to tell this story, and why now?
It is important to tell this story because he is an outstanding king, and considering the amount of time he spent on the throne, it’s important for us to tell his story. The right time for us to tell this story is now, because we need to tell the stories of our important personalities and Awujale is one of the most important kings in the Yoruba nation. His story has a lot of interesting parts, controversies, and confrontations with the government. He has a lot challenges, triumphs here and there. At a point, he was deposed as king but as luck would have it, there was a military overthrow in the second republic in 1979, when UPN’s Olabisi Onabanjo was the governor of Ogun State. But when Lt. General Oladipo Diya was the governor of Ogun State, all the submissions of the previous government was overturned, so Awujale was able to come back to the throne. There are a lot of interesting stories around his ruling over the years. It’s an interesting story that must be told for generations to come.
So I noticed that you have directed a total of three biopics; one on former governor of Kogi State, the other on events around the current president while he was governor of Lagos State and now Awujale. Will it be right to say you are being framed into shooting biopics?
So, I have a predilection for history. When there is any need for a film that is historical to be told, I get excited about it because I’m a student of history myself, I love history. I still research into history and I know that biopics are not easy to film because it has a lot of research. Unlike fiction you can just bring in anything from anywhere to spice up the story, but with biopics, you need to be very careful not to misrepresent real life situations, which means that your research methodology has to be on point. This inspires me, it is much more than filmmaking. I have done other films that are not biopics, but I really love biopics. I think biopics are my best for now because of the kind of research they take me into. It increases my own knowledge of times too. I’m not boxed into a corner, I love biopics.
You have done two that are out and successful. How confident are you because those ones are for governors? How confident are you in bringing this to live because he is a king that is alive?
I’m most excited about this among the biopics that I have shot because there are no political notes per say to it. The major antagonist of Awujale, who are the Ogun State members of the UPN then are no longer alive. There have been reconciliations over the years and also there are not too many controversies to run away from. I think I find this one very interesting because Awujale has written an autobiography so it makes it easier to tell the story, even though we are telling the story from his point of view. It’s from a book that he wrote and everything he wrote is from his point of view. If we are able to talk to other people too, they might have their own side of the story but because there has been reconciliation over the years between him and many of his antagonists, we are not really running away from too many controversies. I find this movie very exciting and like I said earlier I think this is the one I’m most excited about.
In your opinion, why do you think it’s important to document history especially in the present day?
It’s about time we started documenting our history. I mean, looking at the events of the last Nigerian election, where suddenly you just open Twitter and you see a lot of turning of history, real life events upside down. You know for the younger generation who really do not care about history, you can just tweet anything, tell them anything and they take it I hook, like and sinker. If we are not careful, when you repeat a lie over time, it becomes the truth. I think documenting the things that happens in the past in this format, which is visual story telling, makes it a kind of library or reference point for people for us to avoid so many controversies. There were so many controversies during the last elections, people bringing in things that never happened. I have been around for a while and I wasn’t really impressed by the things I saw a lot of intelligent people believe on social media during the last election. This is just the time for us to start documenting the things that happened in the past so that it becomes a point of reference for future generation.
Do you think that this movie will resonate among the younger generation because many prefer to watch comedy movies or regular action?
One of the strategies that we also adopted while we were casting was to find some of their darlings. We know that it’s not the type of story that they are used to, but sometimes we filmmakers say that this is the type of films people like watching. But if you have not presented something else to them, you never can tell. The reason why audiences love comedy is because filmmakers presented comedy to them and they got hooked on it. It’s about time we started giving them biopics, and I’m very sure that so long as it’s well done and we can attract them with some of those popular actors that they like too, once they watch it they will also see that beyond entertainment, visual story telling should also include education. This is entertainment and education so this is something that they should be able to resonate with.
What part of ‘Awujale’ do you find most interesting and what part did you also find most challenging?
My most interesting parts are the rites of passage for the Awujale to become king. When the writer wrote the first draft of the script, he left that part out. I also read the autobiography of the king, and he somehow expunged the rite of passage from it, maybe because he feels there are high end rituals here and there. I feel it is cinematic, it is something that contemporary people should see; what they call ‘Ipebi’, a process that the Oba goes through in dseclusion for months before he can be crowned king. So the rites of passage, the going into a hut in the bush, crossing rivers, staying on a mat for days, going without food and water for a while, some to teach the king humility, to teach him how people who are in poverty also feel. I found these parts really interesting and I think it’s one of those processes that will make leaders think because they feel what the common people feel unlike the modern day leaders that have been shielded from the reality of what is going on in their environment.
Challenges on the other hand have been environmental. We need period houses and period cars, and getting them has not been easy because you know a lot of these homes have been transformed into modern houses. Even if they don’t touch the exterior, you will enter and see POP, you will see DSTV dishes and cables hanging on the walls so we had to do a lot of removing of stuffs and repainting, and trying to just remove the contemporary materials out of our environment and then replicating the materials of that period in the 60’s, the 70’s. That was pretty challenging but it’s our work and we have to do it.
This biopic is about an Ijebu king, a monarch, one of the most respected. Where are you shooting this?
We did the reconnaissance and we wanted to shoot in Ijebu Ode and Ijebu Igbo initially but after going on initial recce, we discovered that there are too much of modalities in Ijebu Ode and Ijebu Igbo and we needed to come to some other Ijebu towns in the entire Ijebu nation to see if we can get all these archival, architectural designs and we found it in abundance in Iperu Remo and Ode Remo. These are the two places where we filmed. We also filmed some bits at Ishara, another important town in Ijebu nation.
What informed the choice of cast?
The first consideration for casting is good actors who can deliver the script. We also wanted good actors who are attractive to the audience, actors whom the audience like. A lot of considerations like timing and their belief in this kind of project because we needed to discuss with a lot of actors before eventually we agreed on the kind of actors that came on the project. We had different things that informed our casting choices.
