Stephanie Linus: I don’t play the gender card as a female director

Stephanie Onyekachi Linus, award-winning film director, says she avoids playing the gender card in the industry because “it is not my drive”.

“Once I feel I have the ability to do it, I just go ahead and do it. It is when you are beginning to to feel like the men are feeling threatened or don’t want to notice what you are doing as a female director that you begin to have issues,” she told Niran Adedokun in ‘Ladies Calling the Shots’ —  a book on Nigerian female film directors to be launched on Monday at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Kofo Abayomi, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Linus had, in 2007, taken a course in directing at the New York Film Academy — and promptly wrote, produced, directed and acted in ‘Through the Glass’, a film that premiered in October 2008 at the Pacific Design Center in Hollywood and instantly won an award.

The film also raked in N10 million in its first week at the cinema in Nigeria, a major feat at the time.

She produced her second effort, ‘Dry’, in 2015 to wide acclaim.

The film, which highlights the plight of child brides and the scourge of vesico vaginal fistula (VVF), won several awards.

“It is possible to feel sidelined when it comes to awards and all that, but even that is not my drive. My drive is, if I have the ability to tell a story and talent to do it, nothing is going to stop me. That’s how I have always look at my life and operated,” she said.

Specially recognised in the book is Lola Fani-Kayode, who is regarded as the trail blazer for female producers and directors in Nigeria with her TV soap ‘Mirror in the Sun’ which had a total of 52 episodes from 1984 to 1986.

Others featured in the book are the late Amaka Igwe, Remi Vaughan-Richards, Mildred Okwo, Patience Oghre-Imobhio, Tope Oshin, Adeola Osunkojo, Blessing Egbe, Belinda Yanga-Agedah, Ola Selhurst, Ema Edosio, Omoni Oboli, Grace Edwin-Okon, Funke Fayoyin, Vanessa Nzediegwu and Ronke Macaulay.

Adedokun is lawyer and writer who writes a weekly column for TheCable.

The launch will be chaired by Olusegun Osoba, former governor of Ogun state.

Femi Jacobs, an actor, will host the public presentation, while the book will be reviewed by Toni Kan, a writer.

Akinwunmi Ambode, Lagos state governor, Toyin Saraki, wife of Senate President Bukola Saraki, and Hadiza Bala Usman, managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), are expected to be at the event.