FilmOne, Accelerate bring Farming to Africa
Movie distributor FilmOne has collaborated with Accelerate TV and Stunt Group to release UK film Farming, by Nigerian-British actor and writer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, in West Africa.
The drama centres on Enitan, a child whose Yorubá parents give him to a white working-class family in London in the 1960s, and who grows up to join a white skinhead gang led by a white supremacists.
Mirroring the life of Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who grew up with a white working-class family in the UK, it stars (FX’s Snowfall) as Enitan.
The cast also includes Nigeria’s Genevieve Nnaji plus Kate Beckinsale (Underworld), John Dagleish, Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Black Mirror), Jaime Winstone, Akinnuoye-Agbaje and a host of others.
Akinnuoye-Agbaje received US$25,000 in funding via the Annenberg Film Fellowship Grant in 2006 and continued to develop the project until the film’s completion last year.
Farming won the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film at the 2019 Edinburgh International Film Festival in June, with Idris winning Best Performance in a British Feature Film at the festival for his part in the movie.
“This was a huge boost of encouragement because I was a first-time screenwriter,” Akinnuoye-Agbaje said of the awards. “Here in Britain, we know a lot about the history of slavery, civil rights and the African-American experience. But very little is known about the black British struggle. This is just one of our stories.”
FilmOne MD Moses Babatope said: “The film is an important one for the [West African] region. We have so many stories that need to be told. Many, like Farming, have relevance beyond Africa and affect the history and culture of other countries where there is a Nigerian diaspora. We want to ensure that audiences in West Africa get to watch movies that shift the conversation around our impact on the world.”
Akinnuoye-Agbaje has featured in more than 50 productions, including The Bourne Identity, Thor, Suicide Squad and Game of Thrones.
Farming will be released in Nigerian, Ghanaian and Liberian cinemas from October 25 following its UK launch on October 11, handled by Lionsgate UK.