A conversation with filmmaker Rahman Oladigbolu about his latest movie “Theory of Conflict”
AD Net Tuesdays | A conversation with filmmaker Rahman Oladigbolu about his latest movie “Theory of Conflict”, Israeli/Palestinian and world ethnic and religious conflict.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 | 6pm – 7:45pm
WHERE: Brookline Public Library at the Coolidge Corner Branch | 31 Pleasant Street Brookline, 02446. – Meeting Room
WHO: Independent African Filmmaker Rahman Olagdibolu will discuss and show parts of his latest movie : “Theory of Conflict”.
WHAT: Information session and discussion on world and ethnic religious conflicts.
FILM SYNOPSIS
A LEAGUE OF ORDINARY STUDENTS TAKING ON AN EXTRAORDINARY TASK
When Sudanese “Lost Boy” Mohammed (Mo) Deng is dumped by his girlfriend of fourteen months, the resulting heartache opens up scabs of old wounds he thought had healed in time, in the ten years that he has been in America.
On the other hand, when his best friend Edward Dudley falls in love with Yafit Abdeel, a former soldier of the Israel Defense Forces, his life will never remain the same again. Edward is well known as a playboy whose life is characterized by frivolous dating and casual sex, whereas Yafit grew up in a conservative home where sex comes only with marriage.
As Mohammed’s emotional life spirals down the rabbit hole, and Edward’s heart is pulled apart in different directions, the two friends are caught up in the wave of a controversial event that is tearing their school apart.
Conflict erupts on their campus as groups of students observe the year’s “Israeli Apartheid Week”, an annual exercise organized by pro-Palestinian teachers and students to protest events in the Middle East. For Edward, this becomes an opportunity to please a girl he’s crazy about, and then maybe also to do something bigger than himself.
Mohammed, however, seems to have no choices. As a popular peer tutor, he has befriended many students on campus, including several Jews and Arabs. Thus, he is an asset to the cause Edward is cooking up, and he feels that he can’t let his best friend down. Yet his old wounds, sustained from the war that marred his childhood, are becoming as fresh as new.
BIOGRAPHY
RAHMAN OLADIGBOLU is an author and award-winning filmmaker who moved to the United States fourteen years ago, armed with a dream to make movies. He started out as a production assistant on movies and television shows around Boston, and directed and coproduced a few short movies. After publishing a memoir, On Holy Pilgrimage: A Long Journey For Freedom, detailing his transformational experience toward achieving his dream of coming to America to make movies, Rahman embarked on his first feature length movie project, Soul Sisters, as the writer/producer/director.
Educated at Quincy College and Harvard University, Rahman won Boston’s prestigious “Best Emerging Filmmaker Award” at the Roxbury International Film Festival, and “The 2010 Artist Award” at the American Islamic Congress, a multicultural and inter-faith organization headquartered in Washington DC. Released in Nigeria and Ghana under the title In America: The Story of the Soul Sisters, his debut movie won the award for “Best Film for an African Abroad” at the 2011 African Movie Academy Award (AMAA). The movie has been screened at film festivals and cultural centers around the world, including the Cannes’ Pan-African Film festival and the Werkstatt Der Kuturen institute in Germany.
Rahman has just completed production of his new movie Theory of Conflict, a movie about a group of students who must deal with their personal problems just as a major ethnic conflict breaks out on their campus. Centered on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the movie is told from the perspective of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, someone whom the Middle East politics has affected in ways often overlooked by the rest of the world. Rahman is currently at the development stage for his next movie project “A Private Experience”, from a story written by renowned Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie about the religious conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria.
Easily Accessible by MBTA
1. Green Line C Service towards Cleveland Circle to Coolidge Corner Stop [3 minute walk]
or 2. 66 Bus Route from Cambridge or from Dudley towards Coolidge Corner and Harvard Street/Beacon Street Intersection [reference bus driver]
Websites:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Theory-of-Conflict-Movie/509118362480038
