A Potent Tool of Remembrance

record found here, lanaire aderemi’s film exploration of the Egba Women’s Revolt, beautifully examines the impact of the movement on those who weren’t old enough to participate in it but were conscious enough to bear witness to its brilliance.

Nigerian film seems to have entered its era of remembrance, with a slew of biopics and historical films like Ayinla (2021), Amina (2021) and, more recently, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (2024). The latter is especially thrilling to me because it is a much-needed depiction of the force Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was, beyond being the mother of Afrobeat pioneer, Fela Kuti, or the supposed first woman to drive a car in Nigeria (a ridiculously reductionist accolade that’s been taught in Nigerian schools for decades). The ‘Lioness of Lisabi’ was unlike any other, a feminist trailblazer who was so fiercely dedicated to the liberation of her people. It is this resolute dedication that arrested lanaire aderemi’'s heart and mind since she was merely a teenager, when her grandmother told her the story of how the Egba women, led by Ransome-Kuti, revolted against a wicked colonial tax system in the late 1940s. 

However, it was not until 2021, while she was pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, that aderemi gave expression to her captivation with that story. She wrote a striking essay about the lessons to be learnt from the revolt for this publication, and released an immersive 24-minute audio-drama about the uprising through her eponymous company, Lanaire Aderemi Productions, in collaboration with Loopify Media. The following year, she took it a step further by producing a play titled protests, hymns and caskets, which showed at Belgrade Theatre in the UK. The play, which was shortlisted for the 2021 Mustapha Matura Award, brought the historical movement to life through song, dance and poetry to an audience of over three hundred. Yet, aderemi was not done. She told me...