The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian British

  • Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce plans annual President’s Dinner

    Preparations are in top gear for this year’s Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce Annual Presidential Dinner and Awards. The event which is the most anticipated social event of the association is billed to take place on the 30th of November 2018 at the Oriental Hotel Lagos. The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited is a sponsor of the event which will  be chaired by the Founder and Chairman of Honeywell Group, Oba Otudeko.

    Also expected to grace the ceremony is John Momoh, Chief Executive Officer, Channels Television who is the event’s Guest Speaker and other distinguished professionals from various sectors. The 2018 NBCC Presidential Dinner and Awards will offer networking opportunities with some of the best in corporate Nigeria; extending our gratitude by giving out awards to individuals and companies such as Guardian Newspaper, Ernest and Young to mention a few, the dinner will also feature live entertainment from a band and Edufirst campaign artistes.

    According to the Director General, Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Bunmi Afolabi, the 2018 Presidential Dinner and Awards would create a platform for high level networking among icons of Nigeria’s business community and highlight the organization’s leading role in fostering closer business ties between Nigeria and Britain.

  • #Nigerian fostered actor tells own story

    In an arresting identity drama, Nigerian-British actor Adewale Akinnuola-Agbaje breaks new grounds with his first film as a director. The film, which details his life from birth to 16, features Nigerian actress Genevieve Nnaji.

    Agbaje’s film captures his life at a time when Nigerian children are commonly fostered to white working class families in the UK, a process known as “ farming”. Thus, Enitan’s family entrust him to the care of Ingrid Carpenter (Kate Beckinsale). He grows up in a loving, boisterous household in Tilbury along with six other children that Ingrid is fostering.

    As a schoolboy, Enitan is bullied by skinheads in the vicinity and had to learn to fight for himself. And since he couldn’t beat the gang, his once was to join them. After all, he had tried effortlessly to be white.

    Perhaps no one could have played the protagonist better than the talented young actor Damson Idris who brings life to the theme of identity struggle through fear and tears, truancy and fad, soberness and submission.

    ‘Farming’ is an emotional coming-of-age drama that explains how the absence of love and parenting has sunk a child deep and deeper into confusion, youthful exuberance and crime.

    Enitan resists Nigeria because he doesn’t understand the language and is frightened by the local customs. He desires the white, but was treated as a second-class citizen, hence the dilemma. The naive attempt of robbing himself white chalk to look white brought him more ridicule.

    Agbaje holds this plot so tightly with racism language, emotions and violence.

  • NIGERIAN-BRITISH ACTOR OYELOWO TO STAR IN RACISM MOVIE

    NIGERIAN-BORN British actor, David Oyelowo, is set to star in ‘Arc of Justice’, a race movie based on a true story about an African-American doctor in 1925.

    NAN reports that Oyewole is playing Ossian Sweet, an African –American Doctor who was tried for murder in Detroit in 1925.

    The movie directed by award-winning Brazilian director and producer, Jose Padilha, is based on Kevin Boyle’s 2004 non-fiction book “Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age.”

    “It tells the true story of a racial incident that put Dr Ossian Sweet on the stand for murder for simply defending his newly bought property against a mob of white rioters.

    “His defense was funded by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), and led by legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow.”

    According to the Hollywood Reporter, American film writers and directors Max Borenstein and Rodney Barnes wrote the script for the project, which is being financed by The Mark Gordon Company.

    Oyelowo had in 2014 played his globally acclaimed ‘highest-profile role to date’ as Martin Luther King Jr. in the American biographical drama film ‘Selma’.

    The film was based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches, championed by the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

    Born on April 1, 1976, in Oxford, England to Nigerian parents, Oyelowo, in a major landmark for ‘colour-blind’ casting, was the first black actor to play an English king in a major production of Shakespeare.

    Oyelowo was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to drama.

    He starred in the HBO original film Nightingale (2014).

  • Studio, financiers clash over Nigerian British actor’s film

    Studio, financiers clash over Nigerian British actor’s film

    Nigerian-born British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor is trending with an unusual attention, following the premiere of two movies in which he played lead. The movies; Half of a Yellow Sun, the motion picture adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s Orange Prize-winning book and 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama on the autobiography by Solomon Northup, have been fetching the actor rave reviews after they were premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, Canada last month, with the latter pitching him as an Oscar candidate.

    There is a stir between Paramount Pictures, the studio-right owner of the film, which belief that executives at Plan B breached the company’s deal with the studio by failing to offer Paramount a chance to finance and distribute the movie. Plan B is the production company of the movie run by popular Hollywood actor Brad Pitt.

    Ejiofor’s predicament, as the hero of the film implies that his chances may dim, should the clash between the two outfits persists. The actor may have his bet on two latest flicks, but 12 Years a Slave, a Steve McQueen’s film about a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C in 1841 and sold into slavery, has upstaged the Nigerian-Biafran war story which Adichie’s book tells, grossing $3.4 million so far at the box office.

    There are indications that despite the long-standing relationship between Brad Pitt and Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey, there is a tense confrontation underway between the studio and Pitt’s Plan B production company over the awards contending film.

    Sources say, according to the arrangement, Pitt is free to accept roles in films at other studios and take a producing credit without cutting in Paramount. But the studio’s position is that Pitt’s company must give Paramount an opportunity to come in on projects that Plan B develops. Paramount is said to be contemplating what steps to take, if any, in the wake of this alleged breach. Grey is said to believe that he was deliberately misled about the project, not by Pitt but by Plan B executives.

    Grey co-founded Plan B with Pitt and the star’s former wife, Jennifer Aniston, in 2002. Pitt became sole owner in 2006. The company has had a deal at Paramount since 2005.

    12 Years a Slave is off to a strong start at the box office, grossing $3.4 million so far in limited release and shooting to the top of most Oscar projectors’ best picture lists.

    Fans are worried that ‘Grey’s hunger for an Oscar’ may take down the touted best film of the year by lawsuit-type threats.

    “Shame on you Paramount and Grey; Paramount did not want to finance this film as they saw a loser; now that it is a winner they begin this crap,” a fan said online, adding that, “ had 12 Years a Slave flopped, there would be no complaints from Paramount.”

    “It seems that it has taken the Studio all of this time to summon their indignation and outrage over this so called exclusion from the production process,” said another movie buff.

    McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave led the field as nominations for the 23rd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced last Thursday. The film, which offers a searing look at slavery in the American South, claimed three nominations; best feature, best actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor and breakthrough actor for Lupita Nyong’o.

    The story is praised by reviewers for its willingness to reveal the dark side of the antebellum U.S, posting a 97 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

    As the next American leading award, Oscar comes up on Sunday, February 24, 2014, the world is waiting to see if Ejiofor will lift the Best Actor laurel.