By Isabella Akinseye

I hope you have been enjoying your weekly dose of trailer reviews and hopefully, that has made you more interested in watching Nollywood movies. From the look of things, 2014 is going to be a good year for the industry. Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in April while the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA) will be back for its second edition in March. I can’t wait! Our trailer for today is Udoka Oyeka’s Living Funeral which he co-produced with Orode Ryan-Okpu whose Pink Pearl Foundation has been quite active in the past few years in raising awareness of breast cancer.

For starters, the name ‘Living Funeral’ is not your everyday movie title. It is an oxymoron because for you  to have a funeral, the person must be dead, right? Well, we find out from our protagonist, a young girl in her early teens (Stephanie Wilson) early on in the trailer that her sister came up with the idea of a living funeral. She is battling breast cancer and her sister thinks a living funeral will give her family the opportunity to celebrate her life and ease the shock of eventually losing her to the disease. Novel! The way young people think these days. This alone makes the movie different. It is not candy coating the realities. It is in-your-face-got-to-deal-with-it-now!

The cinematography and use of lighting further drives home the sadness associated with a disease like breast cancer as well as child loss. There is a black and white scene where we see the young girl head shaven and looking straight into the camera. Her eyes are piercing and arrest you to listen to her and hear her story. Another scene, this time in colour, we see her crying and the other half of the frame darkened. These creative choices make for a more interesting viewing.

Thankfully, we get to see her when she looked different – like a normal  girl and all made up. We also see the different stages of the disease including a scene where she is getting her hair cut (makes the whole thing authentic for me) and when she is wrapping a bandage around her chest (symbolising the loss of her breasts).

From the heart shattering dialogue to the medical props, the sense of loss and foreboding is clearly communicated. The hospital scene shows a sense of helplessness felt by her family. The background music is subtle and creates the right atmosphere.  Talking about music, we see a snapshot of Nigerian singer Omawumi on the microphone. It is hard to fault this piece of work, the only thing I would have done differently was to completely delete the quotes on loss or let them stay on the screen longer.

Kudos to the team Living Funeral for a good job well done and all the best at the 2nd AMVCAs, eight nominations is not a piece of cake. Good luck guys!

Verdict – Watch Living Funeral because it is different – technique wise and it also takes the dreaded subject of breast cancer from the eyes of a dying child.

Do you agree with me on this review? Let me have your thoughts, comments and suggestions. Send me an email [email protected]

Are you a filmmaker? Do you want your trailer reviewed? Get in touch and keep reading; your work might just be next.

Isabella Akinseye is the founder of www.nollysilverscreen.com – a one stop shop for all lovers of Nigeria’s cinematic industry. We feature trailers, reviews, interviews, cinema listings, articles, videos and red carpet fashion.