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MIDWEEK ARTS: Pardonable Unforgiveable… panacea for happy wedlock

By Shaibu Husseini
08 December 2015   |   11:30 pm
MOVIE producer and director, Mr. Yinka Ogundaisi’s new movie, Unforgiveable Unpardonable is not about politics or politicians and so it has absolutely nothing to do with the current agitation for bail out funds by some state governments. But it has a lot to offer couples that are in search of a ‘bail out’ from a…
Ogundaisi

Ogundaisi

MOVIE producer and director, Mr. Yinka Ogundaisi’s new movie, Unforgiveable Unpardonable is not about politics or politicians and so it has absolutely nothing to do with the current agitation for bail out funds by some state governments. But it has a lot to offer couples that are in search of a ‘bail out’ from a horrendous marriage to a sustainable happy one.

Star-studded and an industry wide cast that includes Taiwo and Yomi Obileye, Uche Macauley, Aisha Abimbola, Taiwo Hassan, Gloria Young and Dejumo Lewis of Village Headmaster fame, Pardonable Unforgivable is about domestic violence, perspective on marriage and on the key to sustainable married life.

Produced and directed by Yinka Ogundaisi for Ogundaisi’s Universal Films and Communication Limited, the story revolves round Josephine, Segun, Abimbola, Edwina, Chief Willoughby and 70-year-old Deola who have different tales of betrayals, lust and adventures to share. Josephine leads in the movie’s rising moments when she shuts the door on her marriage, but could not seek a divorce because her only son could not cope with living without a father. She also could not consummate another relationship no matter the pressure from the opposite sex.

On his part, Segun nibbles at the bait of his ex-wife’s wealth to save his ailing business to the detriment of his loving family while Abimbola had a bitterly contested divorce and instead of borrowing a cue from the likes of Josephine she finds solace in partying and consummating other affairs. Elsewhere, Edwina is born to into wealth but that could not guarantee her a steady home as the fellow she divorced found a steady soulmate. Chief Willoughby’s headache is how to contend with his 70-year old wife Deola who is having a sidekick with his best friend. On her part, Deola too draws blood when she stumbles on her husband’s open affair with a young lady she considers a daughter. And the rest of the story is devoted to how the intrigues and conflicts play out.
Laced with folklore music, songs and dances by three ancient masquerades from the old Oyo Empire, Ogundaisi who is reputed to have produced the first English language movie in 1990 titled ‘Give and Take’ said he decided on a love story at this time because of the rampant cases of divorce and domestic violence.

According to Ogundaisi, “Most of what you read on social media now and in the magazine section of our print media are majorly issues around domestic violence and so on. So, we thought we should contribute our quota to the narrative on how we can best handle marriages and relationships”.

Ogundaisi confirmed that post-production work on the movie which features entertainment editor Victor Akande in lead role is completed and that what remains now is a formal premiere and a cinema release of the movie.

He said, “We are done with post-production. We are marketing now and talking to distributors to see how we can exploit the cinema route before we do other platforms and finally release on DVD. We have an assurance of a premiere and we are working on the details. But what is sure is that we are ready for cinema release after which we shall exploit other platforms”.

With the National Distribution Framework (NDF), which Ogundaisi conceived for the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) now moribund, is Ogundaisi whose most recent effort Omoge was sold to a cable station not scared that pirates may feast on his new movie. “It is the reason we are thinking of a cinema release first before we can consider other routes,” Ogundaisi, producer of the longest running but now rested television series, Feyikogbon, submitted.

He explained why the NDF became comatose, “Nigeria is a huge country. Officially in the constitution, there are 774 local governments; so, even if you want to transverse the local governments, estimate the cost, so the board had financial problem to execute the policy. The second was that censorship is on the concurrent list, which means the Federal Government does not have exclusive say on it. So, we had to look for a strategy to incorporate the state governments into what we wanted to do. But, of course, the state governments, because of political reasons, had their own agenda.

“Anyway, the NFVCB decided to promote that shared responsibility by giving out different states to those on the committee. It was going well, the last bit was that in 2011, what has been militating against that distribution policy which would have effectively helped solve the problem of piracy is that till today, there is no link between the license distributors at the regional and national level with the various community distributors. Ideally, the way the distribution policy was programmed to work is that you break the entire country into smaller manageable territory.

“So, when a film is released, it is only in the territories that the distributors say that they want to distribute this film for their communities; those are the legitimate places you will find the movie. The other challenge is Mr. Emeka Mbah’s exit from the NFVCB. The new DG (Patricia Bala) came in, a director in the board before then, but started singing a new song, as the board was not going to renew my consultancy. The long and short of it is that nobody knows if distribution framework is still on. And it is the reason piracy is currently thriving in Nigeria”.

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