This new reverse brain drain when it comes to the film and music industry in Nigeria is nothing short of outstanding. Film makers, directors of photography, and visual artists are all coming together to promote talent in our own voice; with our own style. Some are born, bred and buttered at home and only travel out to learn new skills and then come back home to employ them, others leave abroad and make the decision to come home to utilise their talents to tell our stories. Lola Okusami is the latter, and Gone Nine Months is her first film – an excellent effort from the Yoruba New Yorker!
Set in early 1990s Nigeria, Gone Nine Months paints a portrait of a family slowly pulled apart by simmering tensions beneath the surface. Agnes Olajuwon’s desire for professional growth, her husband’s expectation that his whole family align to support his vision of himself, and the children caught in the crossfire of their parents’ dreams and their own youthful exuberance.