Multiple award-winning filmmaker, Yemi Amodu is one of the most highly celebrated filmmakers. Despite being in the industry for over 3 decades, his movies are always outstanding. His movies such as Afonja, Owo Eje still remain evergreen Yoruba movies.
Despite all these successes and achievements, he is not relenting as his latest movie Shadow Party is currently maintaining the number one position on Netflix.
He started up as an editor but is today a successful filmmaker with a wealth of knowledge.
Yemi Amodu was a guest at City People’s corporate office, where he talked about his movie career since 1983, the many challenges he has faced in his career and why he considered suicide at a point in his career.
Below are the excerpts.
We have heard so much about you in the industry, so how has it been attaining such height in the industry?
I thank God, someone like me is enjoying what we call extended grace. Even though many don’t believe grace does things for people. A lot of my contemporaries have gone to the great beyond and I am still here and very active in the industry, so it’s the grace of God. I started at Alarinjo Theatre, I founded my own group on July 12th, 1983. I left my boss, Sokunbi June 23rd, 1983 and that was how I founded my own troupe called Christ Performing Troupe. Fortunately for me, I was a good actor but never saw it as something that will take me to where I am today. As at that time, directors, editors and others were scarce in the industry, it was an analogue era, so anybody that comes in as a Cinematographer was like a hot cake while actors will queue to serve them and I was not enjoying it. I always want to see myself at the helm of affairs because I am pro-active, so I concluded where I could be very active and be very useful was behind the camera. And that was how I started to learn to edit, so I bless God for where I am today and I am still learning.
Your movie Shadow Party is trending on Netflix, so what really inspired that movie? And many were surprised that you could produce such a fantastic movie?
I will start from where you stopped, it simply means you have not been following my works. I will like to remind you of creative works like Afonja, an epic movie that was produced in 2001, I followed it up with Owo Eje, I directed it. I read it in my primary 5 and that was what I used for my WAEC. The movie Owo Eje did extremely well, it was a box office movie, likewise Afonja. It was also everywhere. Governor Bola Tinubu saw it when he was in government and it was even used to promote the Yoruba agenda in Ilorin, it is a literary work, that was connected to society’s craving for emancipation, freedom, so if you have been following my work you won’t be surprised to see a movie like Shadow Party. Then coming to Shadow Party, it is not by accident, it is a true-life story. In the year 2000, I was having an exhibition in Gateway Hotel, Ota, from there I had an event to attend at a place very close to Ife, when I left Gateway Ota to that place, I didn’t know there was a war going on between Ife and Modakeke.
I left my car for my boys who were handling the exhibition for me, when I got to Ibadan, I was to join another bus going to Ife, but I was told I won’t get anyone that will be going straight, that they will branch along the way, immediately they branched, a minute into the bush they stopped, people came out with all manner of weapon, they told all of us to get down and they instructed us to speak and people that their tongues are twisted were separated, only three of us had a straight tongue in the bus. Right in front of me, they started killing people, the three of us ran through Origbo Meji at about 5.30 to 6, then we got to a place we could be rescued around 6 am, it was a terrible experience, we even ran through corpses dumped on the road. I really wanted to adapt it into a movie but I was not having the kind of money required to produce such, so, I waited for the right time. I approached BOI since they were having a money funds scheme, they saw the scripts and were really impressed, they called me to defend it, which I did.
They provided the money and thank God the rest is history on Netflix now. I already made so much noise about it 2 years ago when I was expecting it to come out, by the time Netflix took it, there was no billboard or any noise about it again, on Netflix it went from new film to number 7, to number 3, then number 2 and number 1.
Can you talk about your most challenging movie and the one that gave you the fame you have today?
It is Shadow Party but I would say every film has its own challenges and peculiarities. But the one I would always say oh I thank God is Shadow Party. I started writing Shadow Party in the year 2000. I started the production in 2017, I couldn’t finish until the end of 2019. It took me 2 years of shooting, a lot of challenges, from finance to logistics. Some people will call it spiritual even though I don’t believe in it, but at the same time I experienced it, there was a period of 4 days, we will prepare to shoot with everything set for the day, then immediately we are about shooting, the rain will start and it happened repeatedly for 4 days until one man called me and said I want to teach you how to fight Kungfu because you are a very weak man, I said weak? He said yes, ordinary rain is threatening for 4 days now and you can’t do anything. He said to give one thousand and my spirit said I should give him which I did, then he said go and do your work but remember, it is just 1hour you paid for, I tested him and we started shooting, immediately it was 1hour, the rain started gathering in the sky, so things like that happened.
There was an instance where I was trying to correct a particular scene I just became stiff, I could not even utter any word and everyone was looking like dwarfs and for 3 days, I couldn’t speak, a guy was just passing and he was like, “who did this to you?” He asked if I could drink soap, I said yes then he said someone should get orange, then he went to his house and brought the local soap, he mixed it with the orange and immediately I drank it, I started vomiting black substance, I became very weak, I slept off when I woke up at about 7 am I became very okay. What will you say about the too many things I faced during the production of Shadow Party. Also at a point, the guy handling our generator who tried fixing it when it was not working caught fire along the line, I was so helpless seeing him in the fire, I jumped in to help him and we both landed on the floor, he ended up burning his back, if you see him today, the mark is still very visible.
Considering all that happened, did you ever consider giving up?
Yes, it got to a point I said enough is enough, I wanted to commit suicide, not just giving up on the movie but giving up on my life. At a point, we were on set for 25 days, I brought an editor that will edit perfectly. I brought in white guys from abroad, on the eve of the 25th day, we just got back and the editor was crying. He said he couldn’t find everything on the system again. I searched through the system myself, the system was not bringing forth anything. I called in my Engineer, I paid 170,000 naira, they sat on it, they couldn’t get anything. I brought in another Engineer, we were there for another 21 days, we couldn’t find anything. Someone now suggested we should contact Himax in the U.S. we contacted them and they said we should ship the system back to the U.S. Someone just called me that there is someone in Ibadan that can do it, they sent the number before they sent the number, I already called my eldest son and told him to take care of the family. I told him I was going to commit suicide, and he said, but you are not the type that gives up easily, so try more, you can’t give up on this, so the link came, I called the man, so he asked us to bring, it got to China before they could retrieve it but we lost some parts of it. So I felt like giving up on my life due to the many challenges, so anybody seeing Shadow Party today will not know the many troubles I went through to make it.
As a filmmaker with lots of experience, what has life taught you?
Life has taught me to be the man I love to be. Filmmaking is not just a craft that anyone can just do. Filmmaking is like a mechanic that wants to work on a car and require lots of instruments. Anybody that is practising filmmaking with fewer talents is just wasting his time. Life has taught me to keep acquiring knowledge more especially because we are in a digital world now. I keep learning and acquiring knowledge.
As a strong member of Tampan, what is the state of the movie industry right now?
Tampan, our major focus now is film even though we are trying so hard to revive the stage. Film is so tangible that one can continue to maximize gains. You can enjoy royalties, just one title can sustain you. So what we are trying to do now is to find an alternative, working with the President and I am the National Secretary. What we are doing now is to find alternative platforms for our people to showcase their movies because the traditional market has fallen, thank God for a platform like Netflix which can separate boys from men. No Nigerian film has ever made it to the Oscars because before a film can make it to the Oscars, it must have 51 per cent of the local language, TAMPAN is trying so hard today to set standard working with filmmakers to open the door. When they start seeing the content of the story people will be presenting, the difference will be so clear coupled with the richness of our language. I can say in the next 1 year, we will win the Oscars for Nigeria.
Your latest movie Shadow Party is a true-life story, why that title?
The movie is all about communal clashes to expose the evils inherent in them, to expose all the negative vices some people are benefitting from all these crises, and the same people benefitting, you will never find their children in the territory where the wars are fought. When wars like that happen, it happens in the very local area, the villages fight over borders and the people benefitting are not the locals, because the locals don’t know why they are fighting. The people that know why they are fighting are in the city. They are the ones that will go on TV and speak English, and they are also the ones the government will call to talk about how issues can be settled and they will call all manner of millions of money, when they are provided with the money, they will buy the villagers guns again, they will keep encouraging the fighters and there won’t be an end to such wars. Take for example what is happening in Nigeria today and I had that same experience 21 years ago, and it is still happening today so if some people are not benefitting from it, why does it keep occurring? So, the people in the background enjoying all these are the Shadow Party. The third at the middle fueling everything is regarded as Shadow Party.
READ ALSO: 50 PARTIES TO BEAT LAST YEAR
