Two British actors, Demetrin Turin and Alex Franklyn, will make their Nollywood debut in ‘Ireke,’ the new epic adventure film by Nigerian-born filmmaker Gbolahan Macjob. Both actors play lead roles. Turin has featured in films like ‘The Itch,’ ‘Deathday,’ among many others.
‘Ireke’ sets out to retell the African slavery story to a global audience while bridging the gap with Blacks scattered across the world who have their ancestry rooted deeply in African countries like Nigeria and Ghana.
Macjob, who is an Emmy nominee, senior journalist and producer with the British Broadcasting Corporation, explained the resolve to tell a slave story that many believe has been told over and over again.
“In the course of making one of my documentaries in 2024, I came across a story of how African slaves rebelled against British colonial authorities in the Caribbean and how Britain was forced to agree to a treaty with these slaves known as the Maroons from Jamaica,” he began. “I realised that these Jamaican Maroons had some Yoruba, Ghanian and Igbo ancestry and decided to tell their story by weaving it into a Nollywood feature and thereby bridging the gap with our relatives in Jamaica, Brazil, Colombia etcetera and the Caribbean Islands where the slave rebellion had an impact.”
Admitting that the African slave trade theme isn’t a new one, Macjob stressed the need for Africans to tell African stories to a global audience.
“The slave theme is not new, but every single slave movie we have watched was made in Hollywood,” he revealed. “The time has come for us to be the one telling our stories and the fact that this particular story is about the heroics of our ancestors is the reason I, as a journalist and a storyteller, want to tell it.
Continuing, Macjob said, “It opens up old conversations between us and our Caribbean cousins, between us and our Ghanaian brothers and sisters, because these were the slaves who collaborated and found success, so our history shows that we are better off together than apart.”
‘Ireke,’ tells a wide range of different accounts by Africans of how Africans were sold to work on Sugarcane plantations due to the boom in Sugar sales as well as the rebellion that ensued when the slaves could no longer take the maltreatment in the Carribeans and Jamaica.
According to Macjob, the historical feature was entirely filmed in Nigeria and has a wide cast that depicts characters of the era in which the story is being told. The cast includes Tobi Bakre, Kolawole Ajeyemi, Bolanle Ninalowo, Fathia Balogun, Yemi Sodimu, Peter Fatomilola, Mofe Duncan, and Antar Laniyan amongst many others. The trailer is set for an early April release in 2025.
With a planned premiere for summer in London, the UK, Europe, the Caribbean, North America, Lagos, Nigeria, and West Africa, Macjob is focusing on travelling with the feature with the sole aim of preaching local to a global audience while bridging the gap with Africans in the diaspora – especially in the Caribbean, and Jamaica.
“We want to spread the word and give the global north a taste of Nollywood cinema experience, after which we would be open to streaming,” Macjob said.
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