Cologne and Nairobi-based sales agent Rushlake Media has acquired world sales rights to “The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos,” the feature debut of the Nigerian filmmaking group the Agbajowo Collective which will have its world premiere in the Centerpiece section of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.
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Based on real-life events that took place in 2016 and 2017 during violent, forced evictions from Lagos’ Otodo Gbame fishing community, the film tells the story of Jawu, a young mother from a waterfront slum who stumbles upon a horde of corrupt blood money marked for a real-estate development that threatens her home. Overcoming isolation and temptation, she must act as a unifying force in a community that stands to lose everything.
Backed by the Durban FilmMart, the Sundance Institute and the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, the film is a collaboration between emerging filmmakers from informal settlements across Lagos working alongside established film professionals. Dubbing itself the Agbajowo Collective, the group seeks to amplify the voices of Lagos’ millions currently living in informal settlements and in imminent threat of losing their homes.
The collective is composed of seven directors: James Tayler, Ogungbamila Temitope, Okechukwu Samuel, Mathew Cerf, Edukpo Tina, Bisola Akinmuyiwa and A.S. Elijah.
The film’s cast includes Temi-Ami Williams (“This is My Desire”) and Nollywood veteran Debo Adebayo and is Rushlake’s second collaboration with Tayler, who co-directed “The Boda Boda Thieves” (2015). It also marks another collaboration between the sales company and German co-producer Michael Henrichs of Die Gesellschaft DGS.
“The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos” is an international co-production between Slum Dwellers International, Justice & Empowerment Initiatives Nigeria, Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation, Die Gesellschaft DGS and Raconteur Productions.
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Speaking in the name of the Agbajowo Collective, co-director Mathew Cerf said: “Our film is as much about process as end product. What began in 2018 as an idea to create a film that would shine a light on forced evictions in Lagos, became a deeper effort to re-imagine how stories like this can be told and create systems of film production that centered around lived experience and the power of the collective.
“Six years later, what emerges is a film whose narrative fabric is infused with the voices and stories of the real world that it depicts,” he continued, “and one that we hope entertains, empowers and transcends.”
“I am thrilled to be working with the Abgajowo Collective and bring this incredible story to the screen while continuing our mission to bring African stories to the world,” added Rushlake founder Philipp Hoffmann. “‘The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos’ as the work of a collective is an innovative way of filmmaking and is simultaneously gripping and exciting cinema entertainment.”
Rushlake Media focuses on high-quality African film and the African market. The company’s most recent acquisition, “ After the Long Rains ,” the sophomore feature from 23-year-old Kenyan-Swiss filmmaker Damien Hauser, screened at the Red Sea Film Festival in 2023 and Rotterdam and Durban this year.
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