On the 7 January 2002, I arrived in cape town to formally study film.

Two weeks later, I was in front of the television and an AD came up for a show on SABC1. The trailer for the show looked gritty, felt authentic and something felt familiar about it and I waited in front of the TV for six hours for the show to air. The show, called YIZOYIZO, opened my mind to the possibilities of being able to express the African story in the city, using all the cinematic tools available to a film maker and my life was never the same. What blew my mind the most was the fact that it was shot on a digital format.

I was told that you could only create that kind of texture to evoke that kind of emotion if you shot with a film camera. I desperately wanted to be able to express how I feel about the environment I was coming from. My search to understanding all the filmmaking tools was what brought me to Cape Town and the show showed me that I was in the right track.

Inside Life isn’t a show merely about fictional characters, nor is it about generic plot lines or the quest to just create a world. Every single character, every single location, every single lighting choice, camera angle, score original music, cut choice and grade choice comes from how I feel about the experiences that I have gone through, the people I have met and even though it presents a world most Nigerian film makers don’t want to talk about, the reality of a lot of these events isn’t shared by just me. I know these people; I am directly and indirectly some of them and I feel strongly that it is imperative for their story to be told. That the nuances in these stories should be told.

World creation is the biggest challenge every specific Nigerian film maker would tell you is practically almost impossible. I had always thought that when I would embark on a project like this, I would have access to endless resources because I have always wanted to be vivid with the worlds I create. Unfortunately, my limitations from Budget to having to raise a new team specifically for this kind of project was a major part of the many obstacles that I had to face.

Most importantly, coming to a new understanding of who I am and having to face my past in developing these characters was the biggest challenge of all. Recreating scenes with characters that are very similar to people that I love, being violated, abused and having to force myself to develop some sense of empathy for some of the people I have loathed almost all my life.

Kicking the table off the holier than thou endoscope that I have placed myself over some of these characters over time, brought me to realisation that both I and people around me have been dealing with so much trauma for so long but we have called it normal.