RETRO: "Efunsetan Aniwura", Classics of Nigerian Cinema

The film adaptation of, a historical biography of Efunsetan Aniwura by Prof. Akinwunmi Ishola was shot on celluloid by the popular Yoruba dramatist Ishola Ogunshola in 1981 after the stage plays by Ishola Ogunshola's I Sho Pepper travelling theatre group in Oyo state, Lagos state and other places in the south west of Nigeria.

EFUNSETAN ANIWURA 1981, directed by Bankole Bello.was the only Nigerian film in the Official Selection for International Competition at the 1982 Festival of 3 Continents in France and later selected in 1986 special focus on Nigerian cinema at the same film festival.

The Synopsis:
Efunsetan Aniwura was a very rich woman in Ibadan at the end of the 18th century. Because of its wealth and power, the community is afraid to ask him questions about his bad manners. Finally they are forced to confront her after she has killed a pregnant slave in public.

"You have to explain everything to the public. But in cinema you do not have to show everything and sometimes you have to show something else; the narrative can proceed by ellipses, or on the contrary find visual "breaths", as the last sequence of a village where peace had returned after justice was rendered. The general public trained in a theater that wants to be didactic as much as recreational is sometimes lost in front of the "connections" proper to the cinematographic writing. »
~Bankole Bello

Producers:
Ishola Ogunshola, Bankole Bello
Director of Photography:
Tunde Kelani
Editors:
Maurice Hamblin, Stève tar
Interpretation:
Iyabo Ogunhsola, Ishola Ogunshola, Lere Paimo
Bankole Bello
Production:
Ishola Ogunshola Theater

From third edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series.
Publisher Editor: Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, @Orikinla