It’s so clichéd I know, but you do really, really have to be very passionate about it.” With so many “off limits” taboo topics for African filmmakers, Apalowo is encouraging producers and directors to explore these “but to be authentic about it. I think we should embrace the creation of a new particular style of telling our stories the best way possible.” In our storytelling structure - look at our folktales and the way my grandma would tell it - one little story can take hours to tell. “There’s this concept that slow-cinema is European.
“It’s high time we as Africans start making specific films, telling our stories.” Queer film or not, it’s difficult to get theatrical distribution in Nigeria for that,” he says.Īpalowo says he didn’t make “All the Colours” to be an award-winner but to tell a story in the best way possible to tell a particular story. “Besides being a queer film it’s also arthouse. We knew it couldn’t screen theatrically but now there are other options like streaming, like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video.” To be realistic we had to figure a way out. “We were realistic that this is a queer film in a country where homosexuality is punishable with 14 years in prison. Then it won the 2023 Teddy for Best Feature at the Berlin Film Festival, and a best director nomination and a best actor nomination for Tedela at MultiChoice’s Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards last year. That’s why I did ‘All the Colours’ as a last effort, thinking: I’m going to make a film for myself and even if it doesn’t get any respect and doesn’t travel and is a failure, I will know I’ve done it.”
At some point I didn’t want to feel like a failure. “I felt I wasn’t in the right environment to make the films I love. “I didn’t do the filmmaking I wanted to make.” I should listen to my own advice because I had already given up,” he explains. Africa presents some specific problems for filmmaking but you can’t give up on your dreams. We knew right from the outset that we were not going to get to screen the film in Nigerian cinemas so we had our minds made up about that.”įor African filmmakers pondering whether a passion project is worthwhile pursuing despite so many hurdles, Apalowo’s message is not to give up. “The issue is after you’re done, you have to pass the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB). Nobody however tried to stop him from making the film, he says. He kept persevering and eventually got Tope Tedela as Bambino and Riyo David as Bawa – realizing full well that another hurdle was Nigerian censorship since Apalowo wasn’t going to compromise his film artistically. I’m never going to get actors for this film, I’m just going to forget about it.” It got to a point where I thought to myself: I’m never going to get this film made. “There were instances where actors dropped out. We see Lagos through the eyes of our main characters with Bambino who sees Bawa taking photos.”Īpalowo explains the most difficult aspect was casting due to the subject matter, making it an issue to get actors. It was challenging to figure out the balance between what we show of Lagos and how the city is portrayed as a character. “I wanted to focus exclusively on just two characters, but a city is not just buildings, it’s its people. “I realized examining something is also a form of love for it - it’s not just a very myopic idea of love.” “It was meant to be a photographer going around Lagos trying to recapture it after finding a box of photographs and revisiting places.” And I had absolutely no idea.”Īccording to Apalowo, the film originally was supposed to be a love letter to Lagos. I couldn’t imagine him going through all those things. It made me wonder and think: Even though we were living so close together in this same physical space our reality was completely different. He didn’t trust me enough to tell me what he was going through. That really got to me because I thought perhaps I was part of the problem. It’s difficult to move around in that small physical space and not get to know people well. “Our residence was small rooms with bunk beds.