This year’s African International Film Festival drew to a close on Saturday with the AFRIFF Globe Awards, and some of the movies that were screened won awards in various categories. Noteworthy is Adekunle ‘Nodash’ Adejuyigbe’s The Delivery Boy, which won Best Nigerian Film. Stanlee Ohikhuare’s Coat of Harm won Best Short Film, beating C.J. Obasi Afrofuturist story Hello, Rain and Nadine Ibrahim’s Tolu. Ghana’s Kwabena Gyanash won Best Feature Film for Azali, and festival opener Sew the Winter to My Skin won Best Director for South Africa’s Jahmil X. T. Qubeka.
Per the movie’s plot synopsis of The Delivery Boy, Amir is a young orphan raised in an African extremist group who runs away on the eve of a suicide mission, taking his bomb vest with him. He runs into Nkem, a young sex worker escaping a lynch mob for a crime committed while trying to get money to save her dying brother. Before the night is over, they traverse the underbelly of the Nigerian metropolis as they search for their identities, their stolen pasts, money, and any semblance of peace they can find.
The movie was made on a shoestring budget, and made its festival debut in June at the NollywoodWeek Paris Film Festival and then at the New York African Film Festival.
When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.
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