Olubukola Bolarinde’s Onidiri set to hit the cinema October

Onidiri, a movie that highlights importance of the ‘Onidiri’, the traditional name for Yoruba hair stylists is set to hit the cinema. The movie, which has the imprint of Yellow Dot Limited, a production outfit, will premiere October 25 and 28.

Speaking about the movie in Lagos, the producer, Olubukola Bolarinde, an architect turned filmmaker said the movie spotlights the varieties and specialties of hairdos.

“Onidiri in Yoruba literally mean the hair stylist or hair-dresser like we popularly call them in this part of the world. It highlights the techniques of hairdo as it passes from mothers to their children and sister to sister.

“The movie showcases the Onidiri as total a artists. It equates the task of hairdo to the process of a sculptor, every single process and movement as precise and rapid. The movie goes back in history to bring to the present past values needed now, as some of the special styles seen today date back to 2000 years ago,” she said.

According to Bolarinde, her sojourning into filmmaking dates back to her childhood passion for art as she still find time to do some visual art works ranging from oil on canvass to pastel, water colour, acrylic and texture.

“I took on the responsibility of producing Onidiri, which premiere on October 25 and 28 respectively. I wrote the story, and the cinematographer and the director are Yellow Dot talents, a production company I founded and nurturing at the moment. I am a self-taught artist; I paint, draw and put it out. I am very well interested in all forms of expressive arts. I interested in every form of art expression; I have a certain type of innate interest in it but more importantly I am a visual artist.

“At a time, I started painting because I had a flair for it. I was good at Fine Art in school but I was not a professional artist. I started painting, working with acrylic on canvass, playing with oil on canvass and some pieces turned out well. I used to take them to Nike Arts gallery. Even though nobody was going to buy them, we would put red stickers on them and hang them on the wall so they tell everyone who walks in that the paintings were sold. I was just experimenting and that went very well,” she added.

She continues: “I studied architecture at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff University, Wales after which I went on to do my Masters in Environmental Design and Engineering at the Bartlett School of Architecture in University College, London.

“After my degrees I decided to have some work experience by going to America and tour the world but that didn’t quite pan out, so I came back to Nigeria and started my career in architecture with James Cubit Architects in Nigeria. I was there for about five years, and while there, I veered into project management and was seconded to the banking industry, Standard Chartered Bank for about two years, working as a project manager and handling all the projects end-to-end in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Lagos.”

With background in architecture and having been exposed to project management both at James Cubit Architects and Standard Chartered Bank, Bolarinde veered off into the Oil and Gas industry, where she worked with Zenon Petroleum & Gas Limited for about seven years as Project Manager and Head of FO Properties, the property division.

From Zenon she moved to the telecom industry as Head of Real Estate and Facilities Management (REFM) Nigeria, and Regional Head of REFM Performance for Ericsson Limited, Sub-Saharan Africa.

Speaking on Yellow Dot’s talent harnessing and management, Bolarinde explained that so far, the production outfit has 15 talents in both entertainment and art, comprising of three visual artists, one prolific and two self-taught.

“Two male, one female artist, different media, one on canvass acrylic another sculpture and so on, they play with different things. One of them is a guru in hyperrealism; her paintings are life-like and look like they were photographs.”

On what stands out Yellow Dot as talent management company, she says: “Because of the other things we stand for, we are a company that is a pool of creative talents. We are not only a talent management company, talent management is an arm of Yellow Dot but we are more focused on the creation of original African content, production for TV and film.”