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Here’s What Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s Movie “Farming” starring Genevieve Nnaji, Kate Beckinsale, Gugu Mbatha-Raw is about
A scene from “Farming”
A couple of months ago BellaNaija Movies & TV brought you the scoop on one of Nollywood actress Genevieve Nnaji‘s new projects, a movie by Nigerian-British writer and director Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje titled ‘Farming’.
More details about the movie are available and we’ve got the scoop!
The movie will have its world premiere on the 8th of September at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie is one of the films in the Discovery section for this year, along with Genevieve Nnaji’s “Lionheart” among others.
The cast of Farming includes Damson Idris, Kate Beckinsale, John Dagleish, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jaime Winstone, Genevieve Nnaji, and Zephan Amissah.
According to TIFF, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje uses his own life as inspiration for his feature film directorial debut which is about a London-born Nigerian child voluntarily placed in a white working-class home as part of a 1960s social experiment, stranding him between cultures and sending him through adolescence on a twisting journey from destructive self-loathing to perseverance.
One of the most shocking social experiments in recent UK history involved the farming out of Nigerian children to white families in the 1960s. Drawing on his own life story, actor-turned-director Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje writes and directs this electrifying film that spans the experience of its protagonist from childhood into adulthood. A coming-of-age film unlike any other, it is a painful but moving look at what this experiment meant to a London-born child whose Yorubá parents voluntarily gave him to a white working-class family, thinking they were giving him the opportunity for a better life.
Enitan’s (Damson Idris) upbringing is a rollercoaster ride that ends up out of control. Living with a half-dozen other children in his new foster home, the young boy drifts off into a world of fantasy in an effort to cope but, of course, he is rudely awakened by reality. A brief move back to Nigeria, where he can’t speak his parents’ native tongue, offers no asylum. Sent back to England, he is desperate to fit in, to meet with society’s approval. This takes him on the most mind-bending of trips during which he joins a white, Clockwork Orange-like skinhead gang led by a racist psychopath, and finds himself beating up on his own kind. These moments are the most disturbing and troubling, as this once-sensitive, contemplative adolescent turns into a violent menace.
Akinnuoye-Agbaje withholds nothing as he details Enitan’s hurt, his yearning, and his descent into destructive self-loathing. But the story does not end here. Farming leads us on a journey of twists and turns, and of perseverance, that will take Enitan in directions not only unexpected but seemingly unreachable.
See some of the cast of the film and their roles below.
Kate Beckinsale Ingrid Carpenter
Gugu Mbatha-Raw Ms. Dapo
Damson Idris Enitan
Jaime Winstone Lynn
Theo Barklem-Biggs Scum
John Dagleish Levi
Cosmo Jarvis Jonesy
Lee Ross Jack
James Eeles Fathead
Skye Lourie Paula
Genevieve Nnaji Tolu
Ann Mitchell Hilda
Zach Avery Martin Fellows
David Olawale Ayinde Yoruba Speaking Passer-By
Tom Canton Bomber
Paul O’Kelly Tilbury Skin
Kirstie Brough Trace
Michael Akinsulire Teacher
Kate Beckinsale in “Farming”
