It began as a trivial conversation. It was a follow-up discussion after a much-heated one had just ended. Their words occasionally filtered to where I was standing, discussing with friends. The most vocal among them kept saying words that bordered between overt masculinity and overt stupidity. My interest in adding my thoughts to the conversation keeps waning the more I hear his insidious comments about women’s role in society. I am grateful I can’t recall some of his comments. I thought I had forgotten about this conversation until I wanted to write this review. I remember being compelled to say this during this toxic conversation. It was this comment of mine that keeps coming to my mind the more I think and reflect about Green: The Amazons. “We, as a society, don’t encourage female participation in sport and we want them to compete fairly with their male counterparts.”
On different occasions towards the final part of the Oluchi Mary Nsofor-directed documentary, Green: The Amazons, my comment gets credence. Sports though a gender-neutral profession has been monopolised by males. It is seen as an oddity; a deviation from the convention, when a female who is passionate about sport embraces their sport-related interest. Name-calling: “tomboy” which borders on communal shaming and bullying becomes a soundtrack of these female sports enthusiasts. In Green: The Amazons, we see how these female athletes have learned to embrace their identity and live with it. Green: The Amazon is an intimate documentation of the stories of five Nigerian female athletes: Diana Osmondi, a Golfer, Chioma Ajomiwe, a Boxer, Anna Chineye Emefo, a Footballer, Amaka Okoh, a Basketballer, and Balikis Yakubu, a Sprinter. The feminist undertone unifies these collections of different but interloping stories. What propels the unity amongst the individual stories in this documentary is the unwavering vision of the five athletes. Although the passionate pursuit of their dreams is often met with unprecedented challenges, these challenges haven’t crumbled the height of their dreams. Their dreams bear a national emblem of Nigerians’ passionate interest in “making it” even when Nigerian society tries to deem that possibility. Beyond being a story of five Nigerian female athletes, it’s the story of five Nigerians who have refused to be bullied by the Nigerian government’s apathetic gesture towards easing life for its citizens.
There are controversial issues that affect Nigerian female athletes. No conducive training space. The paucity of professionally-trained coaches. Absence of motivation and incentives. The list keeps growing daily. However, rather than the documentary becoming a motion picture reiterating this cliche and age-long grumble, the documentary focuses on humanizing its subjects. We get familiar with the prayer routine of Anna Chineye Emefo and that of her family. Pictures and video clips that hoard moments of victory for these female athletes are paired with Famous Odion-Iraoya’s shot.
The documentary made us willing voyagers in the documented lives of these women. The pictures and newspapers that formed the interior decoration of Chioma Ajomiwe’s makeshift home reminded us of the pictures pinned to the wall of our room. This intimate approach that the documentary’s director adopts in telling this story makes us active observers of the lives of these athletes. It allows us access to their story, to see, indirectly, fragments of our drive, cherished memories, and passionate pursuit of dreams through the lives of these women. It is a communal but intimate approach to filmmaking that allows us to share in their optimism and occasional doubt of their families and friends.
The narrative is frustrating. Sports enthusiasts often pursue their passion in a country that stifles passion. Amongst the parallel agreement of the different commentators in the documentary: Yemisi Cole, Abayomi Ajewole, John Abimbola Faniran Akofa, and the exhaustive list of the friends and families of the spotlighted athletes, is that sports don’t often receive the generosity of the Nigerian government.
The Nigerian government is painfully frugal with its financial obligation to the sports industry. Thus, Nigerian athletes, like the five female athletes, often have to rely on personal funds raised by struggling parents and friends to buy training equipment or get transportation to training centers. It is the same narrative for both male and female athletes but for the female athletes, the situation is more dire. However, despite the odds, these ladies are still boastful of their dreams.
Get Tickets to the screening of Seun Afolabi’s ATOKA, Feb.24 New Culture Studio, Mokola, Ibadan