Kunle Afolayan’s Figurine returns in book form

Five years after making waves, Kunle Afolayan’s popular film, The Figurine (Araromire), is returning to the limelight.

This African Movie Academy Award-winning movie, which has also travelled to various international festivals, is returning in the form of a book.

The film’s story, according to a statement, is now being told in a book titled Auteuring Nollywood: Critical Perspectives on The Figurine, due to be unveiled on July 31, 2014 at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.

The statement from Relentless Media, the outfit coordinating the book unveiling and inauguration, in conjunction with Golden Effects Services, indicates that the ceremony will witness a rich array of Nollywood stars, allied film professionals, academics, top government functionaries, captains of industry and members of the diplomatic corps.

It says, “Former Minister of National Planning and a respected patriarch of the arts, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi, OFR, will chair the ceremony that is designed to be one of Nollywood’s greatest moments outside movie location.”

Relentless Media adds that the book, a collection of scholarly essays, is the first of its kind devoted to the work of a single Nigerian film director.

“It interrogates the thematic focus and cinematic style employed in The Figurine, while also using that singular work to engage the new trends in the new Nigerian cinema popularly referred to as Nollywood,” it further notes.

Edited by Dr. Adeshina Afolayan of the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, the book’s foreword was written by Prof. Jonathan Haynes of the Long Island University, USA and a notably scholar on Nollywood.

Contributors to the 455-page book include Dr. Sola Osofisan, Dr. Dele Layiwola, Dr. Chukwuma Okoye, Jane Thorburn, Matthew H. Brown, Gideon Tanimonure, A.G.A Bello, Foluke Ogunleye and Prof. Hyginus Ekwuazi. An ‘Afterword’ on “Neo-Nollywood and its Other” by the prolific Scholar, Dr. Onookome Okome, is also provided in the book in addition to series of interviews with key actors and technicians that featured in the film.

“This is a novelty”, says Kunle Afolayan, who has since shot two other well-acclaimed films – Phone Swap and October 1 (whose premiere is slated for October 1, 2014 in Lagos). “We have always said we should tell our stories. But I believe it goes beyond mere rhetorics and images on the screen. Releasing one’s movie to scholarly interrogation like this is one of the next levels for our film industry to climb and I’m excited that this is already happening through my film”, he added.

Similarly, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, renowned journalist/film Critic and helmsman of Relentless Media, applauds the arrival of Auteuring Nollywood “at a time that the Nigerian film industry is opening up to the Academy Awards and is also being duly acknowledged as a major contributor to the Nigerian economy.”