The sun is setting.
Lagos Island is tinged pink.
Sitting on the fourth floor #iRep2017 newsroom at Goethe-Institut Lagos, I can see and hear the bustle of the cramped yet sprawling city.
"Lagos is an up to date city," read one of the captions in the silent film I just watched. The film is one of five that comprised the British Council's presentation at this year's edition of the iRep Film Festival. The hour-long presentation is, in turn, a part of FOOTPRINTS, an archival project by the British Council and the British Film Institute (BFI) that will culminate in open access digitized colonial era Nigerian footage: ‘byte-sized' history, if you will.
It is easy to understand why Lagos holds the reputation for being cosmopolitan. Certainly, looking at the footage from the Southern Provinces of Nigeria report, one could perhaps say the city has always been this way.
Footprints trailer - the British Council's Nigerian film archive project from British Council Film on Vimeo.
By Michaela Moye
First published in iREP 2017 Newsletter - Issue 2, edited by Derin Ajao, with support of iRep FilmFest and Goethe-Institut Nigeria. Courtesy iREP.