LABAF 2024 Celebrates Soyinka @90 

Yinka Olatunbosun

The Lagos Book and Arts Festival (LABAF) is celebrating the legacies of Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, as part of the lined-up activities for this year’s edition.

The year-long celebration has permeated Nigeria’s cultural landscape brimming with tribute shows, book readings, talk sessions and exhibitions.

‘The Man Died,’ a documentary inspired by one of Soyinka’s classics is billed for a special screening on November 13 at the Agip Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan in Lagos as part of LABAF, which had declared its 2024 season ‘The Soyinka Year’, and dedicated its 26th edition to celebrating the eminent life and illustrious career of the renowned poet, dramatist, essayist, novelist human and civil rights activist, famously referenced as the “Global Humanist.”

Described as the “biggest cultural picnic on the continent of Africa,” the week-long festival is exploring the theme: ‘BREAKOUT: Hope is a Stubborn Thing,’ with over 60 events staged at its traditional venue, Freedom Park on Lagos Island virtually.

The Man Died documentary will also be featured as the ‘Opening Film’, at the ‘Eastern Nigeria International Film Festival, ENIFF’ in Enugu on November 27. Inspired by the long history Eastern Nigeria has with Nollywood and the African Storytelling industry, ENIFF 2024 explores the theme: ‘Reimagine’, focusing on how storytelling can reshape narratives and drive social impact.

Since its first screening on July 12 in Lagos to mark the Nobel laureate’s 90th birthday (July 13), The Man Died had been abroad at the Africa Centre, London as part of a 9-day feast to commemorate Soyinka’s 90th birthday anniversary. It returned home on October 5 as part of the Quramo Festival of Words, QFest.

Though yet to be formally released to the cinemas or online streaming platforms, the film has garnered volumes of critical acclaims, and in the review gaze of such top-notch global cinematic gatherings as the Berlinale in Germany, Carthage in Algeria, Jo’Burg Film Festival, South Africa; African Film Festival, New York, US, and FESPACO in Burkina Faso, among others. This is as it is also being reviewed by at least three major global streaming platforms, and international distribution channels.

Produced by Zuri 24 Media, ‘The Man Died’ is the story of Wole Soyinka’s 27 months incarceration by the Nigerian Government in 1967 at the cusp of the civil war. He was famously seeking a truce between Biafra and the federal government to allow time for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. It is fundamentally a personal account. Essentially, the subject found refuge from the brutality inflicted upon him by retreating into and living within his own mind.

The director of the film, an actor, playwright, director of stage plays, films and curator of visual arts, Awam Amkpa, is a Nigerian-American professor of drama, film, and social and cultural analysis at the New York University in New York and Abu Dhabi. Author of Theatre and Postcolonial Desires (Routledge, 2003), Awam has directed several film documentaries and is curator of photographic exhibitions and film festivals. He has also written several articles on representations in Africa and its Diasporas, representations, and modernisms in theatre, postcolonial theatre, and Black Atlantic films.

In addition to the film screening, a special edition of the annual exhibition ‘Timeless Memories’ has been dedicated to Soyinka. Titled: ‘Wole Soyinka@90: The Man Who Didn’t Die in the Face of Tyranny’, the exhibition features audio and video installation of Soyinka, narrating his prison experience and how he survived the 22 months of solitary confinement between 1967 and 1969. The show which runs from November 12 to 17 is curated by Oludamola Adebowale.

This immersive show will be staged by Kongi’s Harvest Hall at Freedom Park, Lagos.