Edosio Deelen’s Intriguing, Powerful ‘Otiti’ Story

Ferdinand Ekechukwu

“I  just released my second film and it premiered in Brazil, it is going to Spain, Argentina, New Zealand and France in the next couple of months”, filmmaker Ema Edosio Deelen says about her second screen production following a chance meeting with this reporter. It’s a feature film, one that she plans to take round the world before bringing it to a streamer. Edosio Deelen is famous for her first directorial, ‘Kasala!’ a box-office hit and now available on Netflix Africa.

‘Kasala!’ a comedy-feature successfully made the global film festival circuit in 2018, having thirty screen times and winning nine awards. Edosio Deelen’s movie is fiction, but her message is real and so important. Soon she shares her plans, letting out information about  her latest movie, ‘Otiti’. “No plan for the cinemas at the moment”, she revealed. “My plan is for it to travel around the world, build enough reputation and then take it to a streaming platform.”

This entire film will be one of intimacy, loneliness and vulnerability. The primary themes of ‘Otiti’ are fear, dysfunctional families, adoption, and growing old in Africa.  Inspired by her life experience, the film focuses on the intersection of all of these themes as it explores the life of the lead character ‘Otiti’.

It tells an intriguing and powerful story of a withdrawn and reserved seamstress, a boyfriend she refuses to take the next step with and a secret that she carries with her. However, a meeting with Onome, a potential client, upends her regular life and she realizes that she is the daughter of a wealthy man who had abandoned her and her mother…

She would then meet the bedridden father who welcomes her into the family, knowing that she is his daughter. But his three sons Dafe, Tega and Onome are wary of her. As the days go by, and with the date of her planned fashion show approaching, Otiti takes upon her, the responsibility to care for her father.

This does not sit well with her step brothers who would rather prefer their father dead so they can take over his wealth.