Biodun Stephen paints a true life story in Strangers
Just a few weeks after the release of A Simple Lie, celebrated Nollywood director, Biodun Stephen has churned another feature, Strangers. The movie, which has debuted in the cinemas, is inspired by the true events of a medical practitioner, and it follows the life of a remote village boy, untamed by civilization, but hit by calamitous events that changed the course of his life.
The blockbuster stars Bimbo Oshin, Lateef Adedimeji, Jide Kosoko, Bolaji Ogunmola, Femi Adebayo, Peter Fatomilola, Debbie Felix, Chris Iheuwa, Bimbo Akintola, Mide Glover, Nonso Odogwu and others.The movie has clinched a gold award for Best Director, at the International Independent Film Awards.
Speaking about the film, the executive producer of the movie, Banji Adesanmi said that he was inspired by the resilience of the characters involved in true-life events.
“I have a lot of this type of story; I hosted a TV show called Inspire for five years and what we did was to record people’s true-life stories and how they survived. There are lots of these stories that are not told and I decided that I will tell the stories out of Nigeria, but the quality of the production, editing and directing will be international, and this is the first one in the series.
He added: “Fans shouldn’t expect anything less; in this movie, we see someone who is depressed and bounced back; somebody is hopeless but was helped by strangers and, the issue between religion and health issue, some things require medical attention but are acclaimed to be witches.
Speaking on the challenges while producing the movie, he said: “The main challenge was, in order to get the quality and the standard we wanted, it was very expensive, we rewrote the story six times. It’s a six hours journey between the village we shot the movie and Lagos, and one hour drive to Oyo town from the village and we did that every day for nine days. We wanted to produce a quality movie, and we were able to achieve that.
One of the casts, Adedimeji, said: “This movie will sell itself, people will tell the story to others and this is what Nigeria society needs at this time, this is a story for the time because a lot of young people are getting it wrong but this will bring them back.
