The great elder statesman Nelson Mandela once said ‘There
can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way
in which it treats its children’. This rings true especially as it
relates to the girl-child in IDP camps in Nigeria.
In the light of this, Rise Up’s Champions for Change , a social
advocacy group set up to improve the reproductive, maternal,
newborn, adolescent, and child health for women and their
families in Sub-saharan Africa, with funding from the Ford
Foundation, have partnered with one of Nigeria’s foremost
film production companies, Royal Arts Academy to produce
the touching and emotional film ‘Zahra’.
Zahra is the movie about a young 15 year old girl in Northern
Nigeria who goes through the harrowing experience of having
her village attacked and her family killed by marauding
terrorists. She ends up in an IDP camp where she hopes to
find refuge to grieve the loss of her family and dreams but
alas that was not to be as she discovers the IDP turns out to
be another type of hell. How she strives to overcome the
squalor, hoarding and theft of food and medical supplies,
violence by gangs within the camp, sexual harassment and
temptations of prostitution etc are all explored in the film.
In a chat with the producer she stated;
‘This is a very important message we wish to pass
across especially at such a time as this … with the rise
in the numbers of refugees and internally displaced
people in the world. Film is a very powerful medium
and once in a while it is important to use it to shine a
torch on some of the injustices going on in our
society, with a view to eradicating them. I hope we
have been able to do so with this film’.
The movie stars Kannywood’s Sani Danja , as well as
Nollywood’s Patience Ozokwor, Victor Olaotan, Shawn
Faqua, Nicole Ndigwe, Funmi Eko-Ezeh and many more. It
was produced by award winning producer Emem Isong Misodi
and directed by Chris Eneaji, Story was by Uduak
Oguamanam and Vivian Chiji and screenplay was by Vivian
Chiji.
‘Zahra’ will be screened in cinemas (limited release) on
March 10th 2017
