Shola Amoo’s second film is a semi-autobiographical peek into the life of a black teenager searching for his own identity within modern British society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a time in the UK when identity is so utterly linked to the current political environment, it is hardly surprising to see a film looking at race in Britain. However, Shola Amoo\u2019s second film tells the tale from a different angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A film tracing the identity crisis of Femi, a British Nigerian boy, who moves from his childhood foster home in rural Britain to live in London with his birth mother. It\u2019s a story that is based within his own life experience. Yet however much this film deals with coming of age, race, identity and the urban life of a black boy, it also looks at these issues from a different facet i.e. his Nigerian heritage. Often when dealing with this subject matter the heritage is usually British Caribbean yet this time it deals with the beliefs, manners, and ways of life carried to Britain from Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film walks the tricky path to the claustrophobic environment that Femi finds himself in. He moves from the idyllic UK countryside, with its open-air spaces, sunshine and freedom, to living in a dirty concrete city with his birth mother, Yinka, who returned to claim her son from his foster mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His birth mother is not in touch emotionally with her son\u2019s needs and also brings a set of values with her that are misunderstood by the confused Femi. Her values, so based in her Nigerian culture, are values he is unaware of having never experienced them before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film meanders through three areas: rural UK sprawling flatlands of Lincolnshire, deprived south London and then finally Lagos, Nigeria. The film deals with all our questions of motherhood, both as a place and a person. It also explores how this theme plays out as a child becomes a young man and embarks on his own journey to mothering himself; the journey he chooses to take in order to decide for himself who he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n