Afrigather EXCLUSIVE: Joel ‘Kachi Benson (Madu) has been tapped to direct the documentary The Harvest, on Nigeria’s notorious Boko Haram kidnappings of 2014, for Hunting Lane and Impact Partners. A primary-look nonetheless will be discovered above.
Following 4 Nigerian moms as they battle to coach their kids within the wake of tragedy, the movie marks the tenth anniversary of terrorist group Boko Haram’s assault and abduction of 276 younger women from a faculty within the village of Chibok.
Joel ‘Kachi Benson
Hans Wilschut
Nigerian filmmaker Benson got here to helm the movie after tackling the aftermath of the assaults with earlier work together with 2019’s Daughters of Chibok, a VR expertise he wrote and produced which received the Lion for Finest Immersive Story on the 76th Venice Movie Pageant.
“I’ve spent the final 5 years with the moms and survivors of the Chibok kidnappings,” the filmmaker instructed Deadline. “I’ve listened to their tales, and what I’ve learnt is that these girls are greater than the tragedy that’s largely used to explain them. My intention with The Harvest is to present them a platform to inform their very own story and present a aspect to those heroines that the world hardly sees: a neighborhood of moms who’ve stood, and proceed to face as pillars, working collectively to make tomorrow higher for his or her kids. That’s the final bravery.”
Just lately wrapping manufacturing, The Harvest is produced by Jamie Patricof, Katie McNeill, Rachel Halilej, Samira Mohammed, and Adeyinka Oduniyi. Pic is offered by Influence Companions in affiliation with Shark Island Productions and JB Multimedia Studios. Exec producers embrace Ian Darling, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Jenny Raskin, Adam & Melony Lewis, Debbie L. Mcleod, Meadow Fund, Joshua Roth, Jim & Susan Swartz. Co-executive producers embrace Marni E. J. Grossman, Lauren Haber, Kelsey Koenig, Ann W. Lovell, Jennifer Pelling, Christine Woodhouse and Seth Woodhouse.
“We have been honored to have the ability to work with ‘Kachi on this highly effective movie,” acknowledged Patricof of Searching Lane. “What the ladies on this movie accomplish is nothing wanting miraculous. They’re actual life superheroes.”
Named one in every of New African Journal’s High 100 Most Influential Africans in 2019, Benson most lately co-directed Madu, a documentary on Nigerian viral ballet sensation Anthony Madu, which premiered on Disney+.
Beforehand collaborating with Benson on Madu, Patricof’s Searching Lane is thought for producing movies like Captain Incredible, Blue Valentine and The Place Past the Pines, amongst many different initiatives for movie and TV. Most lately, the corporate produced painter Titus Kaphar’s drama Exhibiting Forgiveness, starring André Holland, Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and John Earl Jelks, which world premiered at Sundance 2024.
Over the span of 14 years, Influence Companions has been concerned in financing over 100 movies, together with such award-nominated and profitable works as Icarus, Received’t You Be My Neighbor?, Dina, The Eagle Huntress, How one can Survive a Plague, The Queen of Versailles, and Hell and Again Once more. Upcoming initiatives embrace Matthew O. Henderson’s Zulu Membership doc A King Like Me, base leaping pic Fly, Paris Barclay’s Billy Preston: That’s the Approach God Deliberate It, and Clay Tweel’s The Bitter Tablet, to call only a few.
