Launched in 2017 through a story-development grant from the Sundance Institute’s “Stories for Change” Fund, our film is built around of a core ethos of radical co-creation – based on principles articulated in Katerina Cizek’s “Co-Creation Manifesto”, and film traditions pioneered in the Third Cinema movement of the late twentieth century, which placed lived experience at the center of the creative process. From the writers room, to the creative direction, to the cinematography, to the cast, the production’s creative fabric is infused with the voices, perspectives, and stories of Lagos’s informal settlements.
The film’s story is a mosaic of the environment from which it emerges. The plot is shaped by the lived experiences of its writers, and the central characters were developed through a process that began with 72 interviews with community members across dozens of Lagos's waterfront communities, from which we characters were build that would feel authentic to their environments. From there, the script was developed over three years from 2018-2021, through dozens of intensive writing retreats with the film's core collective.
Samuel okechukwu (left), and temitope ogungbamila (right) at one of many script development writing retreats
In April of 2021, through a 36-day shoot across 7 waterfront communities, we completed principal photography. The post-production process involved a diverse group of professionals, from Lagos to Taipei, contributing to various aspects of the film's completion. In the years that followed, we also shot two rounds of second unit photography, and in 2024 after a long post production process, arrived at our completed film.
THE LEGEND OF THE VAGABOND QUEEN OF LAGOS premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival in three packed screenings across one week to an enthusiastic reception from critics and audiences. The film will continue to play at international festivals over the 2024-2025 season, during which time it will also begin a grassroots screening campaign across informal settlements in Lagos, Port Harcourt and other cities within Nigeria, and abroad, where forced evictions remain an active threat for urban poor communities.
MEMBERS OF THE AGBAJOWO COLLECTIVE ADDRESSING THE AUDIENCE AT THE FILM'S WORLD PREMIERE AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL