For the first time in a major film festival, three Nigerian films have been selected at the Queen's favourite festival, the London Film Festival.

Fifty-One years after its inauguration as the city of London's main cinema event, The Times-BFI London Film Festival will play host to three Nigerian films between October 17 and November 1 when the attention of the film world shifts to the capital of the Queensland for two weeks of the celebration of the seventh art.
A total of 184 feature films and 133 short films will be presented from 43 countries at this festival that is dear to the heart of Queen Elizabeth.
It is the first time in many years that Nigeria will have as many as much entries at the prestigious festival. It is, indeed, the first time that the new Nigerian cinema looks poised to challenge the dominance of the French-speaking African countries, which until the boom in digital video-propelled Nollywood had dominated African entries at major film festivals and had defined along their own paradigms the notion of African Cinema.
However, the paradigm seems to be shifting, with Nigeria changing the media and academic discourse of contemporary African cinema through a new mode of producing and distributing motion picture content. It is this new cinema renaissance that will be seen this month at the London film festival. A renaissance, which on the one hand celebrates Nollywood as a phenomenal producer of low-budget movies and on the other recognizes the emergence of Nigeria-based and Nigerian-born Diaspora directors who identify with the country and are producing world-class movies that can compete internationally.
To thank for Nigeria's celebrated listing among the participating countries at the festival this year are two feature films and one short: Newton Aduaka's Ezra and Irapada, jointly directed by Biodun Aleja and Kunle Afolayan, are competing in the World Cinema section of the festival, while Area Boys, a half-hour film by the British-born Nigerian filmmaker, Omelihu Nwanguma, is selected for the short film corner. Our correspondent gathered that what would have been Nigeria's fourth entry, Tunde Kelani's EzraThe Narrow Path, was dropped simply because it has had its UK Premiere at a festival in Liverpool in April, and earlier in January has had its European premiere at the Helsinki Film Festival. Apart from quality, a UK or European premiere is required of participating films.
While Irapada is the only wholly Nigerian film among the three, having been fully funded and produced in Nigeria, Ezra is listed as a France, Nigerian and Austrian joint production, having been essentially funded by the Franco-German television station, Arte. Area Boys, on the other hand was listed as a Nigeria-UK production, with funding from the UK where the director Nwanguma, 30, is based, but entirely shot in Lagos.
However, the Nigerian identity of each of the directors as well as the geographical and cultural templates of each of the film, according to the Artistic Director of the London film festival, Ms. Sandra Hebron, were enough to qualify the films as Nigeria's entries and should be "worthy of celebration for the country."
Both Irapada and Ezra are storming London as award-winners. With a North American premiere in February at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Best Indigenous award at the African Movie Academy Awards in March, Irapada has proven to be an exemplary, long-distance runner. "Irapada is a movie about Nigeria. It is as much about a personal understanding of life as it is about the direction that we think the Nigerian film industry should be heading," said Afolayan, son of the late legendary actor, Adeyemi Afolayan (Ade Love) who left a lucrative career in a bank to pursue his dream as a filmmaker.
He probably has little reason to complain. Through this debut effort on the big screen, he got an handsome deal to co-direct an American film in July, Triangle of Need, for which a multi-continental premiere has been arranged. His film is also said to be the 'face' of Nollywood at the road-show planned for London between October 18 and 21 by the National Film and Video Censors Board. What more, Afolayan will have his mentor, Kelani, beside him in his hour of glory in London when the first screening of Irapada holds at the cinema hall 2 of the British Film Institute in central London on Monday October 22, and at the Nigerian premiere of the film at London's Odeon cinema in Surrey Quays on October 26.
Starring himself alongside Toun Oni, Deola Oloyede and Femi Branch among others, Irapada is set in locations across Nigeria in a tale of a young successful man who disobeys the counsel of elders and pays the price of foolishness before returning to the path of redemption.
"Irapada is a metaphor about individuals and about the whole country as a whole. It is a timely warning about what could go wrong if we neglect the wisdom of the founding fathers of this nation," he said.
For Ezra, there is no better example of how a Nigerian film can beat the Francophone at their game. With three major awards at the last Pan African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in March, including the top prize, the film about the plight of child soldiers in Africa is going to London well-kitted.
Although new and addresses a different kind of audience, Area Boys is no less significant. Its trailers are already popular on U-Tube, and with superb aerial shots and moving sound effects, Area Boys is absorbing in its portrayal of Lagos as "a city that has to fight for its future." It tells the story of two lifelong friends who decide to leave their life of street crime but find that the true value of their friendship is tested in the process.

Steve Ayorinde