Young adults Banel and Adama live in a small remote village in northern Senegal. Adama is introverted and discreet while Banel is passionate and rebellious, they are destined to love each other with an eternal love. But the couple will be put to the test by the conventions of the community, because where they live, there is no place for passions, and even less for the chaos.
Lock Off
Akwasi Poku | UK | 2021 | 9m
A misinformed police force led by a trigger-happy commander, are tasked with bringing down a suspected "criminal organisation". A misinformed police force led by a trigger-happy commander, are tasked with bringing down a suspected "criminal organisation".
*Closed Captions Available
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Have you listened to the Love Letters to Cinema Podcast yet? Click here for a conversation with director Akwasi Poku about his film Lock Off, hosted by screenwriter, producer and director Joel Tugaineyo.
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This film is playing as part of our Love Letters to Cinema programme. Find out more here.
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CREDITS
Writer and Director: Akwasi Poku
DOP: Adam Barnett & Piet Snymann
VFX: The Mill & Be Grizzlee
Colourist: Alex Gregory
Editor: Marvin Jay Alvarez
Sound Design: String & Tins
Sound: Adam Smyth
Executive Producers: Cle Gyimah, Suen Shobande, Ben Schnieder, Alex Baldwin, Abdou Cisse & Akwasi Poku
Producer: George Telfer
Producer: Ade Mogaji
VFX Supervisor: Zdravko Stoichkov
Graphic Design: Sam Mensah
Stunts Co-ordinator: Asante Lawla, Julian Freund
Poster Design: Matt Chu
Cast: Corey Bovell, Garf Reece-Wells, Lola Jagun, Reece Palmer Lacey, James Boyd, Afolabi Dasaolu, Natalia Voight, Tai Carter, Raheem Bakare
In the summer of 2020, jazz musician and composer Xhosa Cole attended a Black Lives Matter protest in Birmingham city centre. The resulting experience left a profound mark, and inspired him to pen a monologue about his thoughts on his own personal experience of the occasion. Intertwining his own music into a recording of the monologue, he then collaborated with Birmingham-based animator Shiyi Li - the two of them then worked together to produce a beguiling, free-flowing, and absorbing short film which is both powerful and evocative.
For this special event, presented by We Are Parable and Flatpack Projects (and part of "Who We Are", We Are Parable's long term nationwide season of Black Cinema), Xhosa will be in discussion with Anthony Andrews (co-founder of We Are Parable), and will delve into his experience making the work. After the film and the discussion, Xhosa will perform one of his own compositions on the saxophone.
A teenage girl stumbles upon a free-spirited dance crew, leading to alluring but unsettling encounters with nightlife and money.