Multi hyphenate, Funmi Iyanda has announced that her film adaptation of Jude Dibia’s ground breaking novel, Walking with Shadows will make its premiere in London during the BFI Film Festival which runs from October 2 – 13, 2019.
Ms. Iyanda made the announcement via a tweet:
“I’m pleased to announce the @BFI London Film Festival world premiere of Walking With Shadows, an adaptation of @JudeDibia ’s award-winning novel. This is the first in a slate of films my team and l will be making.”
Ms Iyanda an award winning documentary maker and tv host says she is making the switch to feature films because she was “tragedy fatigued”.
“I left news and current affairs because I was tragedy fatigued and could see the trauma-denying, post-shock culture emerging in Nigeria. My purpose for being a journalist was to use media as to provide information and knowledge for building better societies… As information and knowledge became more and more manipulated, l decided to move on to contributing to perspective and understanding especially around the complexities of human darkness using long form stories, art and culture as a means of investigating how we organise society.”
Jude Dibia’s novel was a ground breaking exploration of a gay man’s struggles in a family and society that was not ready to accept his sexual orientation.
The movie directed by Adife O’Kelly and produced by Funmi Iyanda stars Ozzy Agu and Zainab Balogun as well as Funlola Aoifiyebi Raimi and Wale Ojo.