*Theme: Art & Media and the Fate and Fortune of the Underserved: Agenda for Nigeria 2023
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THE 4-day 13th iREPRESENT Documentary Film Festival, which began on Thursday, March 16, with an Opening Cocktail event at the Freedom Park, Lagos Island, ends today with a line-up of Plenaries in the afternoon between 2pm and 6pm, and, later film screening running from 7.30pm through 10pm.
The last plenary of the festival is the CORA Art Stampede, the 31-year-old discursive programme, otherwise called “Artists Parliament”, organised quarterly since June 1991, by the preeminent Art advocacy group, Committee for Relevant Art, CORA.
Running on the Festival’s generic theme of “Africa in Self-Conversation,” the 2023 festival is specifically themed, “Nigeria in Self-Conversation,” and is exploring the topic, Documenting the Underserved: Agenda for Nigeria 2023.’
The Stampede holds from 4pm on the the theme “Art & Media and the Fate and Fortune of the Underserved: Agenda for Nigeria 2023,” and will feature seven speakers from divergent disciplines in the art and media.
The Speakers in the Art Stampede are:
- DR VICTOR OKHAI, Filmmaker, Culture Activist; President, Directors Guild of Nigeria, DGN
- DR. SAMANTHA IWOWO, Screen writer, Media Scholar; Principal Lecturer in Directing Drama for Film and Television, Bournemouth University, UK
- MAKINDE ADENIRAN, Dramatist, Theatre Director/Activist; Sec. Gen, National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners, NANTAP
- DR. ANULI AGINA, Director Nollywood Centre, Pan Atlantic University, Lagos
- ABDULAKAREEM BABAAMINU, Writer, Journalist, Cartoonist, Former Editor, Daily Trust on Saturday
- DR SHAIBU HUSSEINI,, Artiste, Movie Writer, Comm. Scholar; Dept of Mass Communication, University of Lagos
- DR SOLA ADEYEMI, Theatre Artist, Culture Scholar; Director of Drama, University of East Anglia, UK
- FUNKE ANIKE-ADE TREASURE, Broadcaster, Writer, Art Activist (Moderator)
THE closing day plenary sessions are under the theme “Content Inclusivity”. Before the Stampede at 4pm, would be staged at 2pm, My Story of Fuji, a presentation of an ongoing documentation on indigenous music by Dr Saheed Aderinto, professor of History and African and Diaspora Studies at the Florida International University, USA. His current research interest is on the history and journeys of traditional Fuji music, especially studying the root of the popular music genre from his Ibadan Oyo State origin. Professor Aderinto, who recently won $300,000 Dan David Award for his research work, founder of the Lagos Studies Society, LSS, is renowned for his adherence to documenting indigenous cultural art and heritage. He is a fascinating creative, who aside being an astute academics and scholar, also leads a Fuji band, called Saheed Okola Band.
Following this at 3pm would be the session titled, Serving the Community featuring presentations by the four Partners of the iREP in the newly launched initiative called Inner City Screenings, who are hosting satellite screenings of films in their individual neighbourhood in the suburbs of Lagos.
Speaking on the topic Prospects & Challenges of Deploying the Arts to Serve the Underserved, the presenters are Eriata Oribhabor, founder of Eriata Heights, in Ikorodu; Jelili Atiku of Jelili Atiku Foundation, Ejigbo; Segun Adefila, founder of Crown Art Factory, Bariga, and Eric Obuh, aka Vocal Slender, founder of the NGO, BPDA. Each of them would be sharing their experiences in running their various projects and institutions in communities that are basically neglected by the State authorities.
This particular session, according to the iREP Programme Directorate, is at the very heart of the 2023 iREP Festival, as it further explores the realities of challenges that Art and culture producers and promoters may face working in underserved communities. The objective of the project, as explained by the festival Programme Directorate, is “to ensure that the people of those suburbs, sometimes forgotten parts of the society, to experience the pleasure of educative documentary films in their backyard”
On the session, the iREP states: “With the chosen theme, Documenting the Underserved… the iREP is embarking on the pilot scheme of the INNER CITY SCREENING (ICS) project, which will see it screening films in such suburbs of Lagos — Bariga-Makoko, Ikorodu, Ajegunle, Ejigbo — as well as at the festival’s traditional base – Freedom Park (Lagos Island). We hope to use the screened films to awaken the interest of the participants to their civic responsibility,” stated the Festival Programme Directorate. It adds, ”The ICS project will also help us in fashioning a critical aspect of the agenda for the iREP 2023-24 main project: the Documentary Film Curriculum Development project.” To execute this programme, the iREP is partnering with screening centres in the select four pilot centres in Bariga, Ajegunle, Ikorodu, and Ejigbo.”
THE series of Festival Plenary had started with a training on Thursday for young filmmakers on how to pitch her content with international media production bodies such as Multichoice, Amazon, Netflix etc. The session was conducted by the content Executive Director of iREP himself, Femi Odugbemi, te renowned content creator and storyteller, who signature productions on international mediums, include tinse, Battleground, Brethren, Japa Movement and currently Covenant among others.
On Friday, March 17, the sessions were under Political Inclusivity, and it featured artistic products that explore the theme of the festival. Two projects were thus presented — Motherland The Musical by BAP Productions led by the creative entrepreneur turned theatre and film director/producer, Bolanle Austen-Peters — which speaks directly to the current electioneering process in Nigeria. the second project was the Street Art Foundation, led by Rita Ezenwa Okoro, founder and Lead Visionary of Street Project Foundation, a not-for-profit organization speaks on her organisations’s project, which uses creative and performing arts tools to facilitate opportunities for youth leadership development, social mobilisation, and cross-cultural dialogue in Nigeria
In the outline is also indicated that film screenings will hold at the mai festival village, Freedom Park, by broad street, Lagos, four Inner City Screening Centres, ICS, which the festival, for the first time since it was birthed in 2010.
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