Cinema
Ti Oluwa Ni Ile
Tunde Kelani · 1993
Synopsis
In a Yoruba community, two greedy men come to an arrangement with a corrupt chief to sell part of the ancestral land to an oil company that wants to build a filling station on it, in exchange for bribes. But the oracle reveals that this land belongs to the local deities. When the two accomplices die one after the other, the terrified chief seeks to ward off the fate that threatens him.
Context
Written in 1987 by the actor Kareem Adepoju, known as Baba Wande, who also plays the lead, the film is the first that Tunde Kelani directed for Mainframe. Shot in Yoruba, it brings together Dele Odule, Lekan Oladapo, Yemi Shodimu, Yetunde Ogunsola and Oyin Adejobi, and runs to three parts. Having become a cultural landmark, it was the subject in 2024 of a planned stage adaptation, Asiyanbi, announced in Lagos.
Who it is for
For discovering Yoruba cinema of the nineties, between a satire of greed and ancestral beliefs.
Prizes and reception
It ranks among the ten best-selling Yoruba films, and the News Agency of Nigeria counts it among the most watched in Nollywood.