Julius Amedume: I’d love to tell more African stories in my films
Weekend Magazine: How did you begin your journey to become a filmmaker? Julius Amedume: I first became engrossed in films when I was aged four or five. I did not start school until I was seven because of health problems. My mum would work days and my dad would work nights. My dad would come […]
Weekend Magazine: How did you begin your journey to become a filmmaker?
Julius Amedume: I first became engrossed in films when I was aged four or five. I did not start school until I was seven because of health problems. My mum would work days and my dad would work nights. My dad would come home from work and teach me Mathematics and English until he fell asleep at about 11am. I would be left in front of the TV watching westerns, musicals, war films, black and white movies and film noirs until my mum or my siblings came home in the evening. My parents, especially my dad, kept abreast of technology and we were lucky to have a Betamax, VHS and even a Laserdisc player. I used to watch anything that came out, from art house movies to B movies. Throughout childhood and my early teens, I would watch a film almost every day.
On leaving school at the age of 16, I enrolled into Saint Francis of Xavier College in Clapham and made my first short film as part of a media studies course. I ended up writing, producing, editing and directing it. I was originally working with a group of people, but as the amount of work involved dawned on them, they slowly dropped out, leaving me to finish the film. This first attempt at a making a short film set the tone for the types of films I would be compelled to make along my career path. Looking at the film now, it’s still entertaining, but the production values make it seem like a low-budget mess.
When I hit 19, I needed money to go to university, so I took a year out which turned into three. I worked in two sports shops and then spent two years as assistant manager in a shop called PROHIBITIO. We sold high-end designer clothes to celebrities and other characters that walked through the door. Two things helped me most on my journey to film when I worked there. The first was when American actor Jack Nicolson walked by and I enticed him into the shop. He came in and hung around for 15 minutes whilst waiting for a woman friend. I was at a transitional stage when I really wanted to study film but my parents wanted me to follow a different path. Jack told me because he loved acting, it didn’t seem like work and he could put in as many hours as God sends. He told me you shouldn’t do any job that seems like work, because it’s not making you happy. Those words were what I was looking for.
When I went to university, I did an intensive BSC Hons degree in Communications and Technology at a broadcasting university called Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication. Their Film/TV module was a calculated plus, but the other courses taught me things which I would later utilize, like webpage design, DVD authoring, marketing, psychology, electronics, engineering, broadcasting, satellite distribution signals, etc. It also gave me a safety net. If film failed, I could get a job as engineer, which gave my parents peace of mind.
Upon graduating, I immediately went back to doing what I love. Now I had worked out that I really wanted to direct. It incorporated all the other disciplines whilst overseeing the overall project. I got an unpaid runners position at a commercials company. I had been advised this was the easiest way to work your way up to being a director. I started on a Monday and the company went bankrupt on a Friday. I was back to square one but I read it as a sign. Never being someone to wait around, I threw caution to the wind and remembered ‘We create our own destinies and call it fate’. I decided to open a production company. The birth of Amedume Films came in 2002, though a production company had been in my mind since 1999. I did not really have any money, but I also knew I had good contacts and good line of credit from working full-time. I used this line of credit to fund projects whilst I sought investors.
Through my production company, I made three short films, ‘The Meeting’, ‘The Phone Call’ and ‘The Videotape’. ‘The Meeting’, about an intimate conversation between a baker and teacher as they wait for a train, won a best actor and a cinematography award at the Kent Film Festival in 2002. ‘The Phone Call’ explores the repercussions when a young man receives a phone call from an old school friend asking for a favour. It was nominated for five awards at the 5th BFM international film festival in 2002 and won the Best Screenplay award. It was also nominated for the best short film award at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles. As well as taking it to schools and prisons, it also screened on various satellite television channels and MTV Base. ‘The Videotape’ was my first fully corporate-funded short film.
WM: How about your feature film ‘A Goat’s Tail’. How was making it different from making short films?
Amedume: Making a leap from shorts to feature films, the pressures of the production can be catastrophic, especially if you intend to make a film, shot in two continents, on a micro budget.
I had gone to Ghana for three months with my parents so I could chill out and write a script. When I arrived, I suffered from writers block. Nothing managed to make it onto the page. To take my mind off the block, I started to relax and enjoy Ghana. Taking taxis everywhere, my face, body language and attire signaled to the taxi drivers that I was a foreigner. The majority of them tried to exploit me, by trying to double or sometimes triple the fares, but I showed them I wasn’t a “Johnny Just Come.” Taxi drivers are like your local newspapers; they know everything and have strong views. In our many conversations, they told me they would love to travel to England. The shared consensus was that coming from there you must be rich. I tried to tell the cab drivers that compared to cost of living, prices were more or less the same. Living in Ghana actually has more benefits like constant sunshine and fresh food. My information fell on deaf ears, but this turned out to be the key that I was looking for to unlock my writer’s block. The idea for ‘A Goat’s Tail’ was born. I spent the rest of my time in Ghana writing out a treatment. The film was about Kojo, a Ghanian taxi driver, who is hired by a beautiful young British actress, Cynthia, to show her around for the day. The day ends with a sexual encounter and a reluctant promise from Cynthia to invite Kojo to England. Arriving on Cynthia’s doorstep four months later, Kojo soon realizes that the grass might not be greener in England and people are not what they seem.
I wrote the script when I arrived back in London. I gave myself a time limit of two years to make the film. My business plan was based on many calculated risks. In my passion to make the film, I knew nothing could go wrong, but it did, in many ways. First, I never managed to raise all the money I needed, and I decided to gap-finance the film on about 10 credit cards, which I had amassed with zero per cent interest over a year from my good credit. This failed me by the end of the film, leaving me vastly over-budget and with huge debts. I also decided that renting equipment would be too expensive so I decided to buy all my own equipment from eBay and then sell it after the shoot, so I could reinvest the money into the post-production schedule. When the shoot got delayed, the depreciating costs of the equipment came back to haunt me. I decided to cast a Ghanaian non-professional actor for the lead role. He had never left Ghana before—talk about life mimicking art.
Having flown to Ghana with my crew and equipment to shoot the first part of the film, I had scheduled to return to England with the actor to shoot the last part, but his visa was denied three times. I fought to exercise his right to come to England especially since all the required paper work was in order. I even had a letter from the Ghana High Commission endorsing the film. I took the decision to an appeals court and got the case transferred to London. This delayed my film for just over a year, but I did feel victorious when I defended myself in the UK case hearing and won.
I am only really touching the surface of the problems I faced and experienced making that film. It’s true when they say everything that could go wrong will go wrong. Physically, it was the hardest film I have made to date. I spent over three years of my life on it. In the darkest hours of wanting to quit, I realized how much I wanted my career and what I was prepared to do to make it happen. Making this film, I would say, was my film school and I grew more confident and learned how to tell stories better. I also understood the different types of problems I could face in the future on any given production. Having shot, written, produced and directed the film, it confirmed to me I wanted to be writer-director, but also gave me an understanding of the other disciplines. The film went on to be nominated for six awards, and it won the best feature at the Pan-African Film Festival.
WM: How about your Masters in Directing Fiction at the National Film and TV School…what were the benefits to going back to school when you were already making films and had a production company?
Amedume: The National Film School is the best film school in Europe. I felt I had been touched by an angel to have the opportunity to go there. I was still financially hindered from ‘A Goat’s Tail’ and wasn’t sure how I was going to pay the fees, but I was blessed and received a full scholarship from Toledo Productions. Just being in an environment surrounded by like-minded individuals who share your passion and knowledge for film was enough. But to be lectured and have master classes by some of the greats like Stephen Frears, Pawel Pawlikowski, Roger Michell, Ken Loach, Udayan Prasad, Danny Boyle and Mike Leigh, I felt like a child in a sweet shop. What I also found was confidence building and realized that some of what I was learning from these directors I already knew and had picked up through making my films. Understanding why I did something instinctively made me stronger in assessing my own strengths and weaknesses and more precise at what I wanted from the course.
If ,A Goat’s Tail, was my film school, then the National Film School was the polishing and prepping I needed for a lifelong career. The film school really did change me as a person and as a director.
WM: Tell me more about your film ‘Precipice’, which won this year’s AMAA award for Best Short Film from the Diaspora.
Amedume: Precipice had been with me for a while. I grew up watching film noir and thrillers, and in terms of subject matter, I was first inspired by the case about the scandals surrounding the American company ENRON in 2001/2002, and the American stockbroker Bernie Madoff. However, ultimately with the lack of ethnic action heroes on screen, I wanted to create a character that would fill that void whilst being able to tell an entertaining commercial, universal story. My ideas were originally a lot bigger than the short film could handle, but I took one or two strands and streamlined it into a short film. Working with the actor Jimmy Jean-Louis was the essential key to the short film. He is the person I always envisaged and was best suited to fill this void in mainstream cinema.
WM: What was it like winning at AMAA? How far have your plans gone for remaking Precipice into a full-length feature?
Amedume: Winning the AMAA award was amazing. It is something I will remember forever and tell my children about. I honestly never expected to win anything that night and I was just thankful I was nominated. I have a saying that “as a director my job is to serve, to serve the audience.” I believe as along as my audience is engaged, inspired, educated, challenged, entertained and happy with my work, my job is done. Audiences keep you going, nominations are a great pat on the back, and winning awards is a surreal added bonus. I did enjoy winning. I was grinning from ear to ear. It felt great to be embraced by Africa. The film also won the Pan African Film Festival Board of Directors award.
I have developed the ideas around ‘Precipice’ into the feature-length script. Some of the script takes place in Africa. Roman’s character has been developed to give insight into how he became who he is and where he is going. The ideas, the scenarios, the characters’ motivation, wants and needs can stretch into a franchise of three films. I want Jimmy Jean-Louis to stay as the lead, and there are parts for a number of integral supporting characters from the different international territories the film is based in. The script has all the original entertaining set pieces an action thriller should have, but it also has a strong emotional core and social message, which, like all my work, will create topics for debate. I have had a lot of interest in the project, pitched as a Black Jason Bourne. We know this film is going to be profitable, but Jimmy and I want to make the film the way we want to make it and with the right people. So, building the right team and attracting the right investors is key.
WM: What is your creative process like?
Amdume: When I was growing up, my mother used to tell me to be seen and not heard. That stuck with me and I got used to sitting back and just watching people, watching the world, whilst trying to interpret and understand it. I have a very selective memory, and I tend to only remember stuff that I feel is important to me. For example, I might meet you and instantly forget your name, but if you make an impression, I will remember when we met, what we spoke about, and even what you were wearing. Instead of your name, I remember your spirit or your energy. If a story, a person or a situation stays with me, I think about it to the point I become obsessive and need to understand every angle of it, every side. Once I understand, then I can let go.
My brain goes through this process with every film I make. However, mostly, I have to find something challenging, mentally or physically, or I won’t do it. I have written and directed most of my films. I am a slow writer and always write at night, but I feel I am more of a director than a writer. Ultimately, I would love to direct something I have written every five to six years and direct other people’s work in between. Now I am working with a handful of different writers on different projects and reading scripts my agents send through.
WM: What is your philosophy of directing actors? How do you get such profound performances?
Amedume: I put actors through a process. They might not even know it at the time, but I build them up in layers. I do a lot of research and make it available to them so they can see where my mind is. I am quite a deep thinker and it comes across in my conservations with them, which ultimately reflects in their acting. Acting is about what you think. Everything else is secondary to me.
When I do casting sessions, I actually hate when actors come with monologues. Most of the time in castings, I never even make them act or read. I just have a nice chat with them and then make my decision. I have worked with professional and non-professional actors, and I always find the right person for the right role.
WM: What are your thoughts on Nollywood, Ghallywood and other popular African film industries?
Amedume: The Nollywood and Ghallywood market is saturated. There are too many films that have flooded the market making these African movies lack high production values, because producers want to make quick money on as small financial outlay as possible. But now the film industry has reached a stage where films with better quality acting, better storylines and higher production values will rise from the rest and will open the doors for bigger investment in movies and the industry so they can compete on an international level.
The African market is the second largest film producing market in the world after Bollywood. It has taken a while but they are getting there. My only experience of working in the African film industry was when I shot ‘A Goat’s Tail’. I love telling African stories, and working in Africa, but it depends on the story.
WM: What projects do you have on your plate right now?
Amedume: I’m working on five or six projects at the moment, but I would like to see ‘Precipice’ get made and make films that change how we think or view the world.
WM: Do you have any advice for aspiring filmmakers?
Amedume: Stop talking about making a movie and go make one.