Onyeka Nwelue’s documentary chronicles the life and times of Flora Nwapa, ostensibly the first black African female author to have written in English. (This is a point that Mabel Segun, who is also a major first-generation writer, contested vehemently during the course of her interview, arguing that there were others, including herself, who had been writing before Flora Nwapa entered the limelight.) The film featured prominently at the IREP Documentary Film Festival in March of 2017. With the help of several interviewees, the filmmaker provides a comprehensive picture of the life of Flora Nwapa as a writer, public servant, mother, wife, academic, and commentator, up to the time of her death in 1993, tracing her roots to the city of Oguta in Imo State where she was born.
The film begins with the voiceover narration informing us who Flora Nwapa is and sketching out her background and her development from young girl to adulthood. A few still pictures, old sketches, and paintings of the writer are simultaneously presented along with the narration. Following this is an account of her development as a writer (novelist), a civil servant, university teacher, and social commentator. Several shots of Flora Nwapa as a young girl and as an adult are presented simultaneously with the narrator’s account of her life as an elementary and high school student. Still pictures of Queens College Lagos, the University of Ibadan, where she attended, are also presented. A caption of the University of Lagos is depicted to represent her stints there as a teacher in the 1980s. Another crucial point highlighted in the film is her appointment as commissioner for health of the East Central State during the 1970s.
A huge part of the documentary is devoted to interviews which the filmmaker had with major literary icons of Nigeria, family members, and those who were very familiar with Nwapa and her works. The film’s overall essence depended on the comments of those interviewed. These interviews are juxtaposed with stills of Flora Nwapa at various places: reading from her novels, delivering an academic lecture, having in-conversations about her work, in the midst of a crowd, among her colleagues at the university, and with family members enjoying leisure time. Typical footage that catches one’s attention shows Nwapa dancing energetically to popular Nigerian music with her children, friends, and other extended family members.
Nwelue also relied heavily on the tremendous generosity of Nwapa’s siblings and family members who granted interview sessions. These include her daughters Amede and Ejine Nzeribe and her son Uzoma Nwacheke, to mention but a few, who provided information on the writer that created a solid first-hand account. Other important figures interviewed were Sabire Bulshere, an anthropologist and filmmaker, Leslie Obiora, James Currey, editor of Heinemann at the time of Efuru’s publication, Mabel Segun, Lady Werreche Emeruwn, Flora Nwapa’s sister, Chinyere Obi-Obosi, Wole Soyinka, and Akachi Ezeogo.
Using a multi-media approach, the filmmaker draws upon historical footage and personal interviews with various public figures, family members, and contemporaries of Nwapa. Still photographs of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe were used to compliment the narration. Others who were “influenced” by Nwapa and wrote fiction “from the female point of view” such as Zulu Sofola, Ifeoma Okoye, and Zainab Akali were also featured. There is also a sequence of shots featuring Yakubu Gowon and the leader of the Biafran nation, Ojukwu, along with historic footage of the Biafran war and the consequences of the war; including shots of dead children, infants, and adults, and a totally subdued Biafran nation.
The documentary also shows the various journeys the filmmaker made to places such as England and the United States in order to meet up with her publisher, Margret Busby, who described her as a writer whose writings essentially were intended to capture the plight of the female in a patriarchal society and transform her into a figure of prominence.
At some point, one is tempted to venture an impression that the production quality is extremely low, and the entire film unprofessionally made. The lighting effects and camera work were below standard. In an age where digital production has advanced tremendously, the production appears to have been made on a sub-standard Panasonic video camera, a style which ushered in the era of Nollywood during the early 90s.
However poor or low in quality the documentary, though, it has a lot to say about a cultural icon who was integral to the evolution of Nigerian literature. Onyeka Nwelue’s work is a mine of documentary production in Nigeria, and in African cinema as a whole. It is a timely effort, especially now that Nigerian filmmakers are seriously turning their attention to creating archival platforms. The House of Nwapa is at once a film-essay, as much as it also qualifies as a film biography. The narrative quality draws inspiration from the biographical film-essays of Manthia Diawara’s works, such as Who’s Afraid of Ngugi (2012), and Edouard Glissant: One World in Relation (2015).
Documentaries about literary figures or significant artistes in history are rare among the plethora of films produced in Nigeria. Femi Odugbemi, one of the most important documentary filmmakers and curators in Nigeria, opined that with documentary films “Nigerians can engage in the practice of self-conversation” (Irep International Film Festival 2018: Archiving Africa [Irep Media, 2018]). What Onyeka Nwelue’s documentary, The House of Nwapa, accomplishes is to create a certain kind of conversation around the life of an important literary figure.
