Oge Obasi

Born Ogechukwu Charity Ugwu in Zaria, she is the only child of her parents and an indigene of Ezeagu LGA in Enugu. She completed her secondary school education at the Lagos State Government Secondary School, Ijanikin, she went further to study English Language at the Lagos State University, LASU. In her early days as a child, Oge always dreamt of becoming an academia with a strong voice, as she loved reading, debating and writing articles on subject matters that caught her attention. Obasi would later on garner knowledge and vast experience in film and TV production with her first role as a producer on a feature film, Apostates in 2012. She also worked on various projects like October 1, The Figurine by Kunle Afolayan, Amstel Malta Box Office, Miss Earth Nigeria, Heineken's Champion's Planet, Desperate Housewives Africa, and MTV Base Shuga where she worked in the capacities of production coordinator and production manager. In 2012, Oge became the partner and production head at Fiery Film Company; a production company founded to create genre-based films from an African perspective. With Fiery Film, Oge produced the acclaimed zero-budget zombie feature film "Ojuju", which won the "Best Nigerian Film" award at the Africa International Film Festival 2014, and was screened in different festivals around the world such as Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, Shockproof Film Festival in Prague, New Voices in Black Film Festival in New York, Nollywood Week Festival in Paris, Africa in Motion, and other film festivals. (Use the Wikipedia pages of these festivals) In 2015, she produced O-Town, described as a semi-autobiographical gangster saga inspired by the 90s underworld in Owerri, where her husband and partner, C.J. Obasi was born and raised. "O-Town" was an official selection at the Goteborg Film Festival, and received 3 nominations at the 2016 Africa Movie Academy Awards - Best Nigerian Film, Best Promising Actress and Achievement in Soundtrack, and winning in the latter. Obasi executive produced "Bruja", a section of the anthology short Visions called written and directed by Surreal16 - a cinema collective from Nigeria, made up of filmmakers C.J. Obasi, Abba T. Makama and Michael Omonua, who through a 16-point manifesto have pledged to challenge the 'Nollywood' cinema status quo associated with Nigerian filmmaking. She then produced the short film "Hello, Rain" - based on "Hello, Moto" by World Fantasy, Nebula and Hugo award winning Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor, world premiered in the Oscar-qualifying International Competition of the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, followed by a North American premiere in Fantasia Film Festival where it received the Special Mention of the Jury prize. "Hello, Rain" was also been nominated for the Short Film Award at the 2018 BFI London Film Festival. Obasi produced Juju Stories, a Franco-Nigerian anthology film which had its world premiere in the International Competition of Locarno Film Festival, and won the Boccalino D'Oro Award for Best Film. Juju Stories has since screened in many festivals, including the BFI London Film Festival, FESPACO, Indie Memphis, Seattle International Film Festival, Istanbul International Film Festival and AFRIFF, where it won Best Director(s) Award for the trio directors. Juju Stories was released theatrically by CanalOlympia across 12 African countries on October 29, 2021, and theatrically by FilmOne across Nigeria on January 21, 2022. Juju Stories was later acquired by Amazon Prime Video, and has since been released globally on the platform. Her current project is Mami Wata, initially described as a female-driven revenge thriller based on the Mermaid Goddess folklore of West Africa. Mami Wata was developed with Ouaga Film Lab, the European AudioVisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) Producers, Le Groupe Ouest's Less is More, Durban Film Mart (DFM), and was presented at Final Cut in Venice, and Yennenga Post-Production Workshop in FESPACO, where it received the Post Production Grant from the Red Sea International Film Festival. Mami Wata will have its World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It is the first film by a Nigerian-based filmmaker to be showcased at the festival.