We have been in lockdown for weeks, as a result from the coronavirus crisis. Through it all, the internet has been a behemoth of content keeping us from slipping off the brink. With the lockdown getting relaxed in a matter of days, curfew and all, we are still quarantining alone or with family. Recently, I took time to watch content on YouTube that removes focus from the outbreak, and made a recommended list. Whatever your motivations, make it worth your limited time.

Fishbone

Editi Effiong’s Fishbone premiered on YouTube yesterday. The project is Effiong’s short-length feature since 2018’s Up North, and stars Shaffy Bello as the kingpin of a drug cartel nestled in the slums of Makoko, Moshood Fattah as her stooge, and Daniel Effiong as the inspector tasked to bust this elusive network dealing in counterfeit drugs. One of the film’s posters had Fattah drenched in neon-rich lighting, making me believe the film would lean towards that kind of colour grading.

It doesn’t, but this isn’t an indictment on the overall tone. Fishbone is a story fixated on narcotrafficking in Nigeria as much as it runs meta commentary on Nollywood’s piracy woes, which makes it timeless.

Fractured

Fractured is the latest short film from NdaniTV (Frostbite, The Housewife), where we get invited into the home of a young couple on their wedding night. The scene sprawls into romance and stays that way until our lovely couple (Eku Edewor and Karibi Fubara) are thrown into the eye of the storm. The subject of male infertility gives the film most of its artistic merit. Male infertility is still under-discussed due to the longstanding stereotyping of women as the cause of infertility, and Fractured subverts that narrative.

Bayi

Big Brother Naija alum Diane Russet takes on vesicoviginal fistula (VVF) and its disproportionate impact on Northern women, including child marriage. Although the film heralds with ”based on a true story,” we don’t need this prefacing to reinforce real-life truths. I have never seen Diane act before, she divests from cosmetic celebrity and wears female vulnerability in Bayi, and that is compelling in itself.