Award-winning Film Kaka To Screen @ TINFF Canada

Award-winning film ‘Kaka’ has been officially selected to screen at the Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (TINFF) Canada, on September 14, 2024.

Producers of the 12-time award nominated film has also partnered with 1 Million Teachers to champion education in northern Nigeria.

Winner of The Africa Film Festival 2024 Best Costume award, and the Realtime International Film Festival (RTF) UK, Best Nollywood Feature Film award, ‘Kaka’ tells the story of a young girl living in the insecurity-ravaged community of Duma who desires to be a nurse, and how crossing paths with Mallam Habu whose passion is to educate every child, impacts their community.

Motivated by the shocking number of out-school-children in northern Nigeria, Producer and Director of ‘Kaka’, Prince Daniel partnered with 1 Million Teachers, an organization dedicated to enhancing innovative teaching and learning, to reduce the number of out-of-school children and empower teachers with tools, skills and opportunity to become successful educators.

According to UNICEF reports northern Nigeria accounts for over 60 per cent of 13 million out-of-school children in the country.

“I thought to tell the simplest story that resonates with the people (our target audience) in Hausa language though subtitled in English, through the screening of the movie in flashpoints states in the north. These include all the north-eastern and north-western states.”

To ensure the movie reaches its target audience, screening will hold via Mobile Community Cinema, whereby cinema trucks are dispatched to the affected regions to generate call for actions amongst parents, teachers and families in the communities.

Afterwards, its partners 1 Million Teachers will takeover to ensure the enrollment of pupils, train and motivate teachers to teach effectively via its three-thronged approach: first, the recruitment of teachers to address the gap in the quantity and quality of teachers in Nigeria. Second, enhance their competence to teach, beyond trainings by motivating them to want to teach. Finally, enhance their ability to self-advocate which is the key to their professional growth.

Additionally, both aim to host screening of the film in other global cities like New York, post its first international screening at TINFF.

“We hope these screenings will unlock resources to activate the project further because it’s really expensive to achieve. Beyond monetary support, we want to get the word to key decisionmakers who’ll be seeing the film, so those far away from Nigeria can do something,” said 1 Million Teacher’s CEO, Hakeem Subair.

“It’s such an amazing project that uses the power of entertainment to entertain people which speaks to the core of what we do at 1 Million teachers,” added Subair.

‘Kaka’ which wrapped post-production in April, has been nominated for 12 local and international awards: Best Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Actor for Yakubu Mohammed, and Best Indigenous African Film at the Kaduna International Film Festival (KADIFF); Best Nollywood Film, Best Nollywood Actor and Best Actress at TINFF; Best African Actor for Yakubu Mohammed at the Septimius Awards in Amsterdam, Netherland; nominated in the UK, and Best Indigenous Film and Best Costume at the African Film Festival, Texas, US, of which it won Best Costume.

‘Kaka’ will hold its local premiere at KADIFF scheduled to hold August 27 to 31.