Award winning Investigative Reporter, BBC World Service, Peter Gbolahan Macjob, is making his Nollywood debut as a filmmaker with the movie “Ireke”, a story of African slaves captured and taken to Europe.
Macjob was inspired to make the film after a 2024 documentary, where he discovered the story of African slaves rebelling against British colonial authorities in the Caribbean.
Speaking further, he said “The slave theme is not new, but every single slave movie we have watched was made in Hollywood.
“The time has come for us to be the one telling our stories and the fact that this particular story is about th]e heroics of our ancestors is the reason I, as a journalist and a storyteller, want to tell it.”
He believes that Nollywood can go mainstream just like Afrobeats, but to achieve that, they need to ‘push the envelope’ and make films for a global audience.
He said “My aspiration for Nollywood is for the industry to go mainstream – just like Afrobeats has managed to do but to achieve that, we would have to push the envelope.
“We would have to not make films just for ourselves but for a global audience because we are very interesting people, and a lot is happening around us that offers good storytelling, so I have come into Nollywood to contribute my bit to an already amazing industry.”
The film features a star-studded cast, including Tobi Bakre, Kolawole Ajeyemi, and Fathia Balogun.
The trailer will be released in April, and the film will premiere in London before making its way to cinemas across the UK, Europe, the Caribbean, and North America.
