Nollywood director, Desmond Ovbiagele, has revealed that The Milkmaid, a film selected as Nigeria’s official submission for the 93rd Oscars in the International Feature Film (IFF) category was inspired by Nigeria’s N10 note.
Ovbiagele who produced and directed the Hausa language-based thriller brought this revelation to light in an interview with The Cable.
Speaking on the inspiration behind the film’s title, he said; “The story itself was inspired by the two Fulani milkmaids depicted at the back of the Nigerian N10 note. So, it was a very natural choice to title the film ‘The ‘Milkmaid’ because the two main characters are two Fulani milkmaids. That was a fairly easy decision for us.”
The Milkmaid which details the psychological ordeals of victims of insurgency in northern Nigeria earned the highest nomination for the 2020 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMMA) which is slated for December 20.
FULL LIST: ‘The Milkmaid’ Leads Nominations For AMAA 2020
Detailing the challenges he faced while shooting the film, Desmond Ovbiagele stated that telling the story in the language that he does not speak, amongst other things was a major challenge.
“Well, embarking on a project of this nature was always going to be quite challenging in view of the themes of the story. More so, our desire to paint a comprehensive picture of the story we are trying to tell as much as possible, particularly since we are trying to tell it in a local language which I and a lot of the crew did not speak — made it a difficult task,” he explained.
“So, right from the beginning, in terms of translating the script from English to Hausa, Fulfulde and Arabic; there was a lot of work that has to go into preparing the film for principal photography. In addition to that, we had to get the right actors and actresses to portray the characters of the story and we just had to get and immerse the viewers of the film in the local of the story – the location, culture, language and mindset of the characters. So, all that had to be done through acting, costumes and makeup, production design as well as cinematography and we didn’t do it in a location we could substitute for the north – whether in the southwest or east.
“We had to go to Taraba state to shoot the film so we were directly in the theatre of conflict in the northeast, Nigeria. We shot the movie for over three months. That was quite a challenging experience, having to go through that. But our approach was to try and do it with as much honesty as possible which itself posed a challenge because that means we needed to be as authentic as possible in every element of the production. But at the end of the day, we consider it worthwhile. For instance, shooting in Taraba state in itself was a privilege.
“The state, in my opinion, contains one of the most spectacular landscapes available anywhere in Nigeria, although it was a challenge logistically to access these locations. For instance, Mambila Plateau where we shot some portions of the film is a seven-hour journey just within Taraba itself from the state capital and we had to carry the entire cast and crew there with heavy equipment. So, that was a challenge. But at the end of the day, the shots we were able to get and the scenes we staged there were worth the efforts that were expended into accomplishing that.”
The Milkmaid stars popular northern Nigerian actress, Maryam Booth, alongside Ibrahim Jammal, Anthonieta Kalunta, and Gambo Usman Kona, among others.