‘The Milk Maid’ – Desmond Ovbiagele‘s film on insurgency and gender-based violence is the official selection for this year’s Oscar selection. The film beat out other keen contenders in the final voting stage such as ‘Ibi’ (The Birth), ‘Voiceless’, ‘Eyimofe’, ‘Sanitation Day’ and ‘Oloture’ which is currently involved in a copyright infringement brouhaha.
The film was written, produced and directed by former investment banker-turned-filmmaker Desmond Ovbiagele, It was shot entirely in Hausa language and is the story of a Fulani milkmaid who tries to locate her missing sister who has been snatched by Muslim extremists in a rural African community; a very relevant topic in considering the state of insecurity in Nigeria at the moment.
This is massive deal for the film industry in Nigeria which started producing films commercially a little over 35 years ago. Now to set the record straight, there was a Nigerian film industry before that in the 70’s & 60’s with productions by the late Eddie Ugboma, Ola Balogun, Duro Ladipo, Herbert Ogunde, Ade Love etc. However in terms of the modern films termed as ‘Nollywood’ this started about 35 years ago.
We wish him and his team the best and will be following developments on its road to the Oscars hence forth.
