BY VICTOR AKHIDENOR
Between June 12 and 16 2023, a delegation from the Migrant Resource Centre went to Berlin, Germany, for a study tour on job placement, vocational guidance and cooperation. The excursion, sponsored by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), was a weeklong knowledge sharing exercises and great insights into employment in the context of migration.
But that’s a story for another day.
A lot of things can happen on an airplane. But a lot more can happen aboard six flights in the spate of 11 days from Benin city to Ikeja to Amsterdam to Berlin and back. You can sleep, watch movies, eat continental dishes, fall in love, catch a criminal, or get inspiration for movie scripts as you observe the things around you as unrelated, yet creative things keep dancing in your head.
This writer indulged in the first two; didn’t enjoy the third; had no window of opportunity for the fourth, and didn’t wear his investigative journalism cap to think about the fifth. But the sixth was eventful! Eventful? Yes, eventful.
Eventful is a positive word. In air travel, however, its antonym, uneventful is all you pray for. But the mind can create action-packed events unrelated to turbulence and plane crash. His mind created six movie ideas while observing and contributing to the things around him and also conjuring up things in his mind.
Enjoy the loglines but don’t steal the outlines!
Film Title: Passenger 33b
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Logline
After a weeklong activity crisscrossing the nooks and crevices of Berlin, all Passenger 33c needed was a sound sleep aboard the flight from Amsterdam to Lagos. On sighting Passenger 33b, he kissed his wish goodbye.
Aggressive seat mate is not yet a topic of concern like road rage and what makes some people more prone to anger behind the wheel. But Passenger 33c was not ready to stay calm or keep a safe distance to minimize the risk of confrontation.
One of the great travel etiquette questions has to be who gets the middle seat’s armrests on an airplane. Passenger 33b said the person in the middle seats got control over both armrests and that’ was him. That was their first confrontation.
Their fifth and final confrontation occurred in the home of Passenger 33c.
Film Title: Foul Air
Genre: Detective Fiction
Logline
After consuming an unfamiliar meal on the plane, Jo Animashaun released to the atmosphere a noticeable abnormal gas which had a physiological effect on the humans in the confined space with him. It was not a crime, but Chief Inspector Frances Morse took it upon himself to find the “criminal” who released the weapon of mass population.
He used the greater powers of observation and superior mind to clear the name of the wrongly accused suspect (Abiola Moshood) at whom circumstantial evidence points. The denouement in which Chief Inspector Frances Morse revealed how the identity of Jo Animashaun, will blow your mind.
Film Title: The Anthem
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline
After three failed attempts at playing his country’s anthem ahead of their AFCON 2021 game against the Gambia, the president of Mauritania flees the stadium, suspecting military takeover back home.
Die-hard football fan and president of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani (a retired army general) is always present at the stadium cheering the senior national team to victory. This AFCON is his country’s second appearance at the competition. The first one came barely months after he was elected the 9th president of the West African state in 2019. Thus, the current competition is his first and he couldn’t pass it on for anything – except, of course, his re-election bid billed for 2024. So, after he and his fellow Mauritanians were forced to sing their national anthem without music after the wrong anthem was played three times for them to sing to, Ghazouani feels those against his coming back to power in 2024 were behind it.
Film Title: Maureen Misses Her Flight
Genre: Horror
Logline
Despite her best efforts, Maureen Ovbiagele missed her connecting flight from Amsterdam to Berlin. That frantic fear-of-missing-a-flight feeling suddenly descended on her. It got worse because it was the last flight out of the capital of The Netherlands, so automatic rebooking was for the next day. The only option was a free overnight accommodation close to the airport. And she was taken to a motel by one of the airline staff.
In the middle of the night, she woke up to use the bathroom. Then she saw a man standing at the end of the bed, staring at her. Maureen Ovbiagele knew instantly she had a ghost for company. He was translucent and dressed like he was from the pre-amalgamation era of the northern and southern protectorates of the country later called Nigeria.
She passed out.
Maureen Ovbiagele woke up with the bed covered in vomit. And that was where things got even more creepy.
Film Title: Bribe and Prejudice
Genre: Action Comedy
Logline
After serving two years suspension for match-fixing, Zambian referee Janny Sikazwe is back in the fray and this time he’s officiating an AFCON group match between Mali and Tunisia and he has been instructed by a match-fixing cabal, who still has something on him, that the match must not get to 90 minutes or he’ll be shot on the pitch.
In the AFCON game between Mali and Tunisia, his task wasn’t the regular match-fixing tactics of manufacturing penalties, giving one side numerical advantage by sending off players from the opposition or ignoring career-threatening tackles committed by the favoured team. This African Cup of Nations group game must not end in the stipulated 90 minutes. This is new to him. Sikazwe faces the fight of his life and those of his family as he tries to escape from the stranglehold of dangerous anti-football men.
Film Title: Hallucinations of Abami
Genre: Historical Fiction
Logline
The life and times of the music maestro Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was filled with sound and fury, signifying something. The skirmishes with the Nigerian police, the Kalakuta tragedy, the exile in Ghana, the marriage to 27 women in a day, the political ambition, and the imprisonment. In this short movie, Fela takes his friend Victor Akhidenor down memory lane. He recalls the incident that led to the composition of one of his hit tracks, Expensive Shit.
Watch this space for the second instalment from The Trip to Berlin.
Victor Akhidenor can be reached via [email protected]
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