Cinema
Orun Mooru
Moses Olaiya Adejumo · 1982
Synopsis
Baba Sala comes from nothing and has made himself a small fortune selling electronics in town. An unscrupulous diviner promises him better and tells him what to do. He listens, stakes everything he owns, and ends up ruined before the eyes of the whole neighbourhood. It then remains to decide what a man does when he has nothing left and everyone has seen him fall.
Context
It was the first feature film of a company that had been performing in public squares since 1965 and appeared twice a week on television. It was well received, but pirated copies circulated even before the takings were in, and the loss was such that it remained the symbol of the shift of Nigerian production towards the cassette: since piracy always caught up with film stock, one might as well sell on video oneself. The title character is the one its performer had played on stage for fifteen years.
Who it is for
In Yoruba. The comedy lies in the acting, the costumes and the puns, part of which is lost outside the language. It is worth knowing that a babalawo is a diviner, consulted for any serious matter.
Prizes and reception
Its plundering by pirate copies led a whole industry to abandon celluloid. It is the commercial failure with the heaviest consequences in Nigerian cinema.