Kunle Afolayan’s ‘The Figurine’ is back

The 2009 Nigerian thriller, The Figurine (Araromire) by prolific Nollywood actor and director, Kunle Afolayan, is back in book form. And it will soon be hitting the book shelves. 

Five years ago, The Figurine hit the limelight and won five awards, one of which was the Best Film category of the prestigious African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA).

As a movie, The Figurine was critically acclaimed. It was praised for its top-notch cinematography, and for being the movie to finally break the jinx of mediocrity in Nollywood and for leading the revolutionary rebirth of the industry.

It’s no surprise now that the outstandingly brilliant Afolayan has chosen to tell the film’s story in a scholarly book titled  Auteuring Nollywood: Critical Perspectives on The Figurine, to be unvieled at a major ceremony on Thursday, July 31, 2014 at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos.

“Termed as an event that will be “one of Nollywood‘s greatest moments outside a movie location,” the book unveiling and launching  is set to witness a rich array of Nollywood stars, allied film professionals, academics, top government functionaries, captains of industry and members of the diplomatic corps,” the organisers said in a statement.

The ceremony will be chaired by a well-respected partriach of the arts and former minister of national planning, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi.

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.

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 notable scholar on Nollywood.

With contributions to the 455-page book by renowned authors such as 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.

Kunle Afolayan has since shot two other well-acclaimed films – Phone Swap and October 1 (which will be premiered on 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,” Afolayan said.

“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.”

The yet-to-be released book is already receiving critical acclaims, renowned  journalist/film Critic and helmsman of Relentless Media, Steve Ayorinde, applauding its arrival “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”.

“The book fulfills two roles — championing a new and positive development in cinematic and literary studies in Nigeria by focusing exclusively on the work of a single cineaste while also expanding the narrative around a film industry that continues to announce its arrival on the global scene in a spectacular way,” Ayorinde said.

Former secretary-general of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and  lecturer at the Institute of African Studies, Carlton University, Ottawa, Canada, Dr. Nduka Otiono described the book as being “seminal in its inauguration of a new chapter in the study of Nigeria’s phenomenal contribution to global film culture.

“It makes a strong case for a more in-depth artistic and critical approach to the study of Nollywood that triangulates around orality,” Otiono added.

Of the book, Dr. Akin Adesokan of Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, said: “It is comprehensive and informed about its subject and in unexpected ways gives solidity to the characterization of Nollywood as ‘telling our own stories’”.

Director-General of the national broadcasting commission, Mr. Emeka Mba, and the director of Nollywood Study Centre, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos, Dr. Ikechukwu Obiaya will review the book at the launch.