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Short Films by Onyeka Igwe

Short Films by Onyeka Igwe

7 Episodes

Playful, absorbing, and deeply inquisitive, the films of Onyeka Igwe turn to the archives to challenge official narratives and excavate hidden histories. Whether tracing fragments of her own family history in THE NAMES HAVE CHANGED, INCLUDING MY OWN AND TRUTHS HAVE BEEN ALTERED, reimagining anticolonial activism in 1940s London in A RADICAL DUET, or conjuring the absent images of Britain’s colonial record in A SO-CALLED ARCHIVE, Igwe’s work shifts inventively between documentary, narrative, and performance to bring the nearly forgotten past into dynamic dialogue with the present.

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Short Films by Onyeka Igwe

7 Episodes

  • We Need New Names
    14:43
    We Need New Names
    Episode 1

    We Need New Names

    Episode 1

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2015 • United Kingdom

    Using the funeral of the filmmaker’s family matriarch as a jumping-off point, WE NEED NEW NAMES explores contemporary Nigerian diasporic female identity, cultural memory, and the very concept of fiction.

  • Specialised Technique
    07:21
    Specialised Technique
    Episode 2

    Specialised Technique

    Episode 2

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2018 • Nigeria, United Kingdom

    Transforming studied spectacle into kinetic livingness, artist Onyeka Igwe reclaims and reanimates images of Black dance as portrayed in British colonial-era propaganda films.

  • the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered
    25:55
    the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered
    Episode 3

    the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered

    Episode 3

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2019 • Nigeria, United Kingdom

    THE NAMES HAVE CHANGED . . . tells the story of artist Onyeka Igwe’s grandfather, the story of the “land,” and the story of an encounter with Nigeria in four different ways: a folktale of two brothers rendered in the broad strokes of colon...

  • a so-called archive
    21:23
    a so-called archive
    Episode 4

    a so-called archive

    Episode 4

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2020 • Nigeria, United Kingdom

    Blending footage shot in two separate colonial archive buildings—one in Lagos, Nigeria, the other in Bristol, England—this double portrait considers the “sonic shadows” that colonial images continue to generate even after the disintegratio...

  • The Miracle on George Green
    12:47
    The Miracle on George Green
    Episode 5

    The Miracle on George Green

    Episode 5

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2022 • United Kingdom

    THE MIRACLE ON GEORGE GREEN tells a collective social history of the UK tradition of the commons—land collectively owned and used to gather, play, and debate. The film centers on the George Green treehouse in East London, where a beloved chestnut t...

  • A Radical Duet
    28:14
    A Radical Duet
    Episode 6

    A Radical Duet

    Episode 6

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2023 • United Kingdom
    Starring Renee Bailey, Tomi Ogunjobi, Emmanuel Kojo

    What happened in 1940s London when two women of different generations, both fighting against colonialism, came together to put their fervor and imagination into writing a revolutionary play?

  • Penkelemes
    19:35
    Penkelemes
    Episode 7

    Penkelemes

    Episode 7

    Directed by Onyeka Igwe • 2025 • Nigeria, United Kingdom

    Created in 1948 to produce compliant colonial subjects, the University of Ibadan stands as an example of the university as a colonial project. Following Nigerian independence, it briefly flourished as a center of Nigerian thought and cultu...

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