Kunle Afolayan, Nigerian's famous filmmaker, opens up his choice of Temi Otedola, who plays the lead in a new film, Citation.
The film producer said during a press briefing in Lagos on Thursday.
“Whenever I scroll through her social media pages, I used to wonder at how energetic and enterprising she is. Then, when I saw her on a CNN programme, her talent seeped through and I knew I would like to work with her. Here we are now.”
In October 2019, films were pre-produced in the Cape Verde Island country.
The story is written by Tunde Babalola, Afolayan's longtime film associate.
According to Afolayan, Citation is a new age film that tells the story of a happy 21-year-old student, Moremi Oluwa (Temi Otedola), repeatly harassed by a smoothly speaking university don.
Moremi takes him to the Senate and thus begins to concatenate things that characterize his life.
Afolayan said in an environment where sexual harassment is an issue of topical importance on campuses,
“Citation will create awareness on the different forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private sphere. It will educate the society on women’s rights and the ways to enforce these rights for the achievement of equality and tranquillity.
The movie will encourage and embolden women to stand up against mistreatment and abuse by a patriarchal society. It has also been designed to propel women to aspire to become successful leaders and thereby provide counterexamples to negative gender stereotypes,” he added.
The actor also stated that the project already works together with the Ford Foundation, the Canon Central, who will use its new Canon EOS C500 Mark II camera and access bank, through its W Initiative, which is Africa's leading women's financial program to inspire, connect and empower women and girls.
Other partners are Ajike Peoppels Support Center, the NGO's and Ms. Olufolake Ajike Abdulrahman.
The actors will have a good enough hand to shoot the movie in Nigeria, Senegal and Cape Verde before a planned January 2020 shoot.
In addition, the director said the film is intended to market Cape Verde among Nigerians and the rest of the world and to establish film and cultural affinity between both countries, apart from its thematic basis. Abdulrazaq's pet project, First Dame of Kwara, and Flyboku's continental travel logistics online travel portal.
