19 Screening with post-film discussion:
Taiwo Shango: Der 2. Tag nach dem Tod [The Second Day After the Death] (BR, WDR, NTS, 1965)

Chair: Christine Matzke

Onsite screening (UBT) of a 1965 television production by Bavarian Broadcasting Cooperation (BR), West German Broadcasting Cooperation (WDR) in conjunction with Nigerian Television Service (NTS), followed by a post-film discussion with project members (joint project ACC UniLag/UBT).

Dubbed German version with English subtitles. (Approx. time: 2 hr 30 min – 1 hr 45 min screening plus discussion)

Synopsis

From the voice over of the film:
This film tells the story of the friendship between a European and an African, a friendship which ends in unhappiness without either of them being to blame. It also tells of the difference between the pictures of God which man constructs for himself. (Taiwo Shango 1965)

Taiwo Shango (Christopher Kolade) is a successful Lagos-based lawyer who lives according to the tenet ‘work hard, play hard’. Together with his partner Patricia (Yinka Akerele), a Lagosian, he moves among the stylish elite in the Nigerian capital. In his home town of Oke Aja, however, Taiwo has responsibilities as the eldest son of the Otunba (Kola Ogunmola), a high-ranking elder, who holds an eminent traditional office and must fulfil certain obligations on the death of the local ruler. Taiwo’s brother, Kehinde (Segun Olusola), has remained at home and is the powerful administrator of Oke Aja, supporting and advising the Otunba. Between the brothers, there are tensions and jealousies.

The Otunba wants Taiwo to marry Dr Oju (Elsie Olusola), a doctor at the hospital in Oke Aja, who is in a relationship with Taiwo’s close friend, Dr Brian Murray (Howard Vernon), the European director of the clinic. Brian is caught unawares by this longstanding plan.
Oju’s and Brian’s relationship is further tested when Taiwo’s father is expected by some to die after the death of the ruler he has served. When that happens, Oju, reacting in accordance with her Catholic education, challenges Brian to protect the Otunba.

Taiwo travels from Lagos to Oke Aja to be with his family at this crucial time. When the Otunba fails to meet community expectations, the town is thrown into disarray, and Taiwo considers his options and obligations. Though deeply conflicted, he faces up to his family responsibility.

Discussants:

• Lekan Balogun is a scholar, award-winning playwright, theatre director and essayist working at the University of Lagos.
  
• Carli Coetzee, a specialist on African literature, African popular cultural studies, and the ethics of knowledge production about and from Africa, is the editor of the Journal of African Cultural Studies.
  
• Wolfgang Fuhrmann, the author of Imperial Projections: Screening the German Colonies (2015), also works on historical film reception, and transnational film history, with focus on the Americas.
  
• James Gibbs, a specialist on Wole Soyinka and Ghanaian theatre, taught at universities in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Belgium and the UK before retiring from teaching in 2007.
  
• Bode Omojola is a composer, award-winning scholar and Hammond-Douglass Five College Professor of Music at Mount Holyoke College and the Five College Consortium, Massachusetts, USA.
  
• Onookome Okome, a pioneer in Nollywood Studies, is Professor of Anglophone Literature and Cinema at the Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, CA.
  
• Christine Matzke teaches literature and theatre at the University of Bayreuth, with a strong research interests in African theatre and performance.