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Coconut Head Generation

Director in Person
$15 Special Event Tickets
Directed by Alain Kassanda.
France/Nigeria, 2023, DCP, color, 89 min.
English, Yoruba and French with English subtitles.
DCP source: Icarus Films

As modestly radical as the people it follows, Kassanda’s feature begins at the “Thursday Film Series,” a cinema club held by students at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Screening works by the likes of Hondo, Sembene and the Black Audio Film Collective, the energized students quickly transcend the title’s dismissive moniker given to them by the older generation and engage in respectfully fierce debates about a range of issues—unemployment, neocolonialism, feminism—spurred by the screenings. Allowing unfolding events guide its content and format, Kassanda adapts to surprising upsets which include the university’s union strike, itself soon swept up in the larger #EndSARS movement denouncing police brutality and government ineptitude, followed shortly by its bloody suppression. Amid challenging conditions, the students respond to systems that continually fail them through non-hierarchical, thoughtful organizing. Kassanda not only documents but participates in bringing cinema to life through compassionate, inspired action.

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2026 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

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