Sodiq the tragic documentary of a dream lost

Documentary by Adeyemi Michael
Entry fee: N$20

The UK Nigerian feature film and documentary “Sodiq” follows the lives of Sodiq Adeojo, who dreamed of becoming a doctor and Sylvester Akpalara, who had a promising career as an athlete. Five years later (2012), Sodiq was convicted of murdering Sylvester and is serving a 30-year jail sentence. How does a boy with the aspirations of becoming a doctor finds himself on trial for murder? This documentary investigates the dark side of the relationship between the promising young men. Sodiq Adeojo is a 20-year old young man who has been found guilty of the murder of Sylvester Akpalara, an 18-year old on the 29th December 2010. In 2004 Sodiq (aged 11) and Adeyemi (Director, aged 19), set up a football team for kids on their housing estate to give them a different type of gang to belong to.  Adeyemi began making this documentary in 2008 when the team was about to end as he left to go to university. At the time Sodiq was about to take his GCSE’s and embark on an academic journey to study medicine. In less than four years the life of this seemingly promising young man took a dramatic turn for the worst, along with six other boys he was accused of murder but he was the only one convicted.

The purpose of this 60-minute documentary is to discover what the turning point was in Sodiq’s life and how this is just the surface of wider societal issues in Britain today. This film, produced by the UK National Film and Television School, provides the audience with privileged and unprecedented access to a hidden world that one only ever reads about in headlines. Sodiq has been nominated for International Documentary Association (IDA) documentary award, 2013, was the winner of Best Student Film Award and the Goodluck Jonathan President’s Special Award at the African International Film Festival, Nigeria, 2013 and also the winner of the Sembene Ousmane Films for Development Prize at the Zanzibar International Film Festival earlier this year.