Multi talented Nigerian filmmaker, Tunde Kelani is one of the few African producers whose latest work, Cordelia, will feature at the 30th New York African Film Festival set for May 15. The Director of the Festival, Mahen Bonneti, in a statement, said Kelani’s film will screen at 7.30pm alongside the short film, Employee of the Month by Goga Clay.
Cordelia, set in Nigeria during the early 1990s under military rule, is an adaptation of a work of fiction by renowned dramatist and poet, Femi Osofisan. Actors in the flick include- William Benson, Omowunmi Dada, Keppy Ekpenyong-Bassey, Ropo Ewenla, Yvonne Jegede, Kelechi Udegbe, Femi Adebayo and Taiwo Ibikunle.
One morning, he arrives at his office worried about his wife’s strange behaviour and is soon visited by two curious students, one of whom is Cordelia Nwaeze Peters, daughter of a popular Colonel Nwaeze Peters, of the Nigerian Army, and a University proessor that were recently implicated in a military coup. Speaking on the movie, Kelani disclosed that the movie is a product of collaboration with people from different cultures and backgrounds, united by a creative force without boundaries.
The New York African Film Festival is an annual festival running for over 30 years that showcases a selection of top African movies every year, intending to celebrate the African movie culture.
Tunde Kelani, is a formally trained Photographer, Cinematographer and Filmmaker. An avid reader, a keen observer of society and its history as well as a natural storyteller, I engage culture as a film producer and director. I employ film as a tool of social, cultural and linguistic anthropological enquiry using the camera to present the cultural realities and social circumstances of individuals and communities I choose to engage as seen through their own eyes. Tunde is known for his great movies such as Dazzling Mirage, Maami, Sidi Ilujinle, Abeni, Narrow Path, Saworo de, Agogo Eewo, Oleku, Ti Oluwa Nile, etc. The latest moves include the sensational Ayinla and Cordelia.