Search Film, Company, People...

SHAIHU UMAR

By Adamu HALILU

ARTMATTAN PRODUCTIONS - as SALES All rights / DISTR Theatrical, TV, DVD-video

Drama - Completed 1976

- Year of production
- 1976
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- NIGERIA
- Director(s)
- Adamu HALILU
- Cast
- Umaru LADAN, Mairiga ALIYU, Husaini MOHAMMED, Umaru DEMBO, Assad YASIN, Harira KACHIA
- Producer(s)
- Umaru LADAN, Umaru DEMBO
- Synopsis
- Didi Cheeka works as a director and film critic and has been working for years to reappraise the Nigerian film heritage. He initiated the archive project “Reclaiming History, Unveiling Memory” with the aim of restoring, digitizing and curating rediscovered Nigerian films.
  
  SHAIHU UMAR is one of the most important works in Nigerian film history, but was long considered lost. Located in northern Nigeria at the end of the 19th century, the film is based on a novel by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who later became Nigeria’s first prime minister. Only the rediscovery of the camera negative in 2016 made the reconstruction of the film possible. The digitally restored version had its premiere at the Berlinale in February 2018.
  
  Set in northern Nigeria towards the end of the 19th century, Shaihu Umar starts with a discussion between Islamic students and their renowned teacher, the wise man Shaihu Umar. Asked about his origins, Umar begins to tell his story: he comes from a modest background and is separated from his mother after his father dies and his stepfather is banished. His subsequent trials and tribulations are marked by slavery, and he is put to any number of tests until he finally becomes the adopted son of his Arabic master Abdulkarim. He attends Koran School and is made an imam upon reaching adulthood. Following a particular dream, he resolves to search for his mother.