The lingering opening shot of “Eyimofe (This Is My Desire)” is a tangle of cords. Mofe (Jude Akuwudike), a factory technician working in Lagos, Nigeria, is all too familiar with their jumbled, haphazardly arranged mess. Constantly called to tinker with them to keep printers and cutting machines running, he’s learned to snip and tape and twist them to keep electrical malfunctions at bay. Mofe knows the precarity of the situation. But his calls for new junction boxes fall on deaf ears. And so, day in and day out, he must wrestle with these unruly cords to maintain a semblance of order on the factory floor.
It’s hard not to read into this introductory frame the central conceit of what co-directors (and twin brothers) Arie and Chuko Esiri are sketching out with their extraordinary debut feature film. Mofe, like many working class Nigerians we meet in “Eyimofe,” must contort his life to match the disarrayed world around him. He may yearn for order, for respite, for escape, but homespun survival tactics are all he can rely on to get by. He’s constantly one loose wire away from having it all going up in smoke.
*The views of the above article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Africa Speaks 4 Africa or its editorial team.