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
