Exactly 50 years ago, in 1971, the first movie adaptation of Chinua Achebe’sThings Fall Apart was made. The movie drew elements from Achebe’s follow-up novel No Longer at Ease and was directed by the now-late German director Hans Jurgen Pohland. The movie starred the likes of Elizabeth of Toro, Nigeria’s first international film star Orlando Martins, and Johnny Sekka.

In commemoration of the golden anniversary of the film, LagosPhoto Festival and Modern Art Film Archiv, where the official archive of Things Fall Apart’s first director Hans Jurgen Pohland is archived, have launched an exhibition presenting “a collection of unpublished film stills, various production papers, as well as correspondences exchanged during the 1970 adaptation of Things Fall Apart.” The project is curated by Berlin-based photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi Gisela Kayser and supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Goethe-Institut.

EVENTS: 

Film screening: Jurgen’s Things Fall Apart is being screened at the Nigerian Film Corporation, beside Voice of Nigeria, Ikoyi up until August 8.

Exhibition: A “large-scale installation in the form of seventy-four printed 2 x 2m fabric tarpaulins” of photographs are currently on display at Tinubu square until Sept. 4. Some of these displays are rare footages of Chinua Achebe on set, Orlando Martins in his role as Obierika and  Iyabo Aboaba, co-founder of Freedom Park, Lagos, in her role as Bisi from No Longer at Ease.

If you are in lagos, stop by!

Find out more about the commemoration of the film here. Check out some stills from the film posted on Modern Art Film Archiv’s instagram page.