I wrote and directed a documentary, my first work in this space.

I remember this time last year, when we were scrambling to confirm the schedule of Wọlé Ṣóyínká, Africa’s first Nobel Prizewinner in Literature, who had agreed to sit down for a conversation about a bungalow at the University of Ibadan where he had lived and worked as a young man in the early sixties.

The film is done now — it premiered in Ibadan on July 12, 2024. It’s a story that covers Soyinka’s time in that eponymous location, along with surrounding events, including the Nigerian Civil War, his employment with the university, Soyinka’s journey to the Nobel, and the subject of memory.

The film examines not just these events, but those of other members of that neighbourhood, and their interwoven lives. “How do we preserve not just what we remember, but the physical markers of such transient memory?” we ask.

Thanks to family members, colleagues, and generous funding from Open Society Foundations and Sterling Bank Nigeria, the film continues to travel, and to engage with the question of memory, heritage, home, and history.

You can now watch it on Vimeo.