Veteran Nollywood actress, Stella Damasus, others stars in Akwụna

Akwụna is a movie written and produced by Nnamdi Kanaga, directed and produced by Oluyinka Davids starring veteran Nollywood actress, Stella Damasus as the gritty protagonist Ebere.

The short film, (a potential TV show) which was wrapped up in Dallas Texas a few days ago, is a collaborative arrangement between Oluyinka Davids, Nnamdi Kanaga, and Stella Damasus, who also is the associate producer.

The film co-stars Dallas-based, American actor, Tim Meadows, The African Film Festival Director, Kelechi Eke, Nnamdi Kanaga, and Sara Rashelle.

On her reason for taking a role in Akwụna, popular Nollywood star, Stella Damasus said: “I took on this role because it is more challenging. After being in the industry for over 25 years, I was always playing the decent, respectable housewife or the damsel in distress. I thought it was time to do something different and push myself beyond the boundaries and expectations that people have set for me.”

Damasus added: “It’s a new chapter in my life and with newness, comes the boldness and desire to take more risks and challenges in my career and life in general.”

While sharing his view on the importance of the film, the director, Oluyinka Davids said: “Everybody wants to come to America, but the truth is not everybody really knows what goes down in America. This might sound very cliche, but it is a reality oftentimes (if not always) overlooked. Stories about survival in America can be very scary, I mean people do a lot of things in order to breathe the ‘American oxygen’, and in that process, they lose a lot of things sometimes, even themselves.”

On the film Akwụna, the writer, Nnamdi Kanaga said, “When Stella, Oluyinka and I decided to do a project together, we wanted the collaboration to birth something different. Something people have never seen before. With this in mind, I wrote the script without thinking about any limitations because we were ready to give it everything- creatively, technically, artistically, and beyond.

“Akwụna is daring. The story threads on paths that people have, in recent times, avoided and/or overlooked.”

Kanaga said: “Right now what we have made is a short film, but we hope that we get more resources to make the story into a formidable TV show.”