I was born a storyteller – Sarah Juma

Sarah Juma’s transition from prose to renowned film programmes is a testament to her lifelong passion for storytelling. In this interview, she discusses filmmaking, social advocacy, and the creative journey behind her short film ‘Trinket’.

Can you share a bit about your personal journey in becoming a screenwriter, including your experience graduating from a prestigious film programmes?

I like to say that I was born a storyteller and have always been one. However, my background in my teens was prose writing, going all the way back to 2012 when I won a prize in the Golden Baobab Prize for African Children’s Literature. At the same time, I also lived and breathed film and television even more than that, so I always knew screenwriting would become my chosen medium of storytelling, I just didn’t know when.

When I worked in investment banking after graduating from college, I gained insight into how the money travels from institutional investors on Wall Street to the media conglomerates that make film and TV, but it was a daunting job where your creativity is stifled, so I left in 2019 for the creative side of the industry. I threw my weight into applying for graduate programmes in screenwriting as I’d felt my skills would be best honed there. It’s crazy to think of how much I’ve gotten under my belt since that time, including signing with my manager and agent, showing at film festivals, being a script editor for a Nigerian TV series, being selected by BAFTA North America, and placing in prestigious fellowships and contests. The best part of all this is that I don’t have to compromise on my voice, and I’m being recognized for it too - I write strong characterdriven stories which are culturally specific.

What motivated you to pursue a career in filmmaking, and how has your background influenced your storytelling approach?

I see it as a career because I don’t picture myself doing anything else for the rest of my life. I’m always thinking about stories and how to see them on screen. Writers are, of course, at the beginning of the assembly line of whatever a finished on-screen product is, and I thoroughly enjoy that early phase: coming up with ideas, shaping and naming the characters, deciding their fates, building their worlds—these all ignite my creative senses on another level.

Growing up in Nigeria, our storytelling tradition is didactic, so there’s always a moral lesson tacked on to the end of the story; good tends to triumph over evil in those early Nollywood films of the legendary Patience Ozokwor and Eucharia Anunobi. While I don’t write with the same structure those stories are told, I definitely believe they have influenced me to think about “theme” at the forefront of my conceptualization process. When I choose a story to write a script about, what do I want to say about society? What values do I want my characters to represent?

Can you walk us through the thought process behind creating “Trinket” and how it evolved from a micro-fiction story to a short film script?

After I’d written a micro-fiction story that was well received by readers, wherein a housekeeper’s life takes a turn in a few hours, when a politician claims he lost his watch in the hotel room, I thought to take the plunge and adapt it into a short film script. The script unlocked quite a number of doors for me; firstly, it was the application sample which paved the way for my acceptance into the American Film Institute Conservatory and Loyola Marymount SFTV, which I enrolled in. The second major thing was landing a Top 5 spot in Shore Script’s Short Film Fund in 2020, which said to me that the script was resonating with people and there would be an audience if I actually put it on screen.

What inspired you to delve into the themes of human rights, and what message do you aim to convey through the film?

I’m a very socially-conscious person; I hardly skip what’s in the news, sometimes to my own detriment. In my early teens, I would actually get teased for thinking BBC or NTA headlines were a viable discussion topic (if you’re thirteen years old and love the news, don’t let anyone talk you away from that interest!). So naturally, when I’m thinking of what to tell a story about, it’s these issues culled from national and international headlines that spur me: environmental issues, gender issues, geopolitical conflict, and class wars. They pique my interest, frighten me, and anger me, sometimes all at the same time.

In the same vein, being a woman, African, from Northern Nigeria, and a minority ethnic group in the North-East at that, I’m no stranger to being an outsider in many spaces. So, I empathize with and I’m drawn to characters in similar shoes, characters who have to be their own champions because many times they won’t have advocates. I crafted the film’s main character, Matilda, with this in mind. I also made the ending an infuriating cliffhanger because that’s often, sadly, how human rights issues end up in Nigeria: a victim, with odds against them and no advocates. Interestingly, this fiction wasn’t entirely surrealist because my father had been through a similar ordeal under a past military regime, as a junior civil servant. Suffice to say, the story’s idea isn’t far from home.

Could you share insights into how you secured funding and technical support for the production of “Trinket”?

I put a decent amount of my savings from my banking job into financing the film and had to pitch to my family members to consider it as a viable investment. When we had the funding set in place, I had to be very methodical with the budget because cash can get burned through very quickly while you’re in production. Technically speaking, I was enrolled in a graduate-level short film production course at the time, which was hands-on with teaching Black magic DaVinci Resolve; this gave me insight into post-production. If there’s a piece of advice I’ll give other screenwriters, it’s to expose yourself to post-production. You don’t have to immerse yourself in it and learn editing since that’s another person’s role entirely, but it teaches you to write with brevity and envision the assembly of the cuts on the page before they even get to production. It’s crucial to be a “filmic” writer.

Were there specific challenges you faced during the production process, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenges were logistical. For one, we filmed in Abuja, which everyone knows isn’t the entertainment hub of Nigeria; most productions, from music videos to film and television, take place in Lagos, and the crew I assembled was based there too. We had to fly them to Abuja, with the unreliability of the aviation system threatening flight cancellations and reschedules. And time is money when they have another shoot to get back to. Likewise, the heavy cinematography gear and rigs had to travel by road, through the western part of the country, to Abuja; they travelled through traffic and police checkpoints… enough said on that. All that said, I cannot overstate how incredible my family was in jumping in to help where they could. My mother was pretty much my production assistant, and she was tremendous in coordinating travel and lodging for the cast and crew.

How did you go about assembling the crew for “Trinket,” and what criteria did you consider when selecting individuals with notable credentials in the Nollywood industry?

One thing I’ve learned to do as a screenwriter is to sit through the end of a TV show or film and take in all the names who came together to make that project a reality. It’s acknowledging them for their work, but it’s also a valuable networking tool. Around that time, I’d seen some incredible Nollywood features and shorts and took note of the directors of photography of each of them, especially the ones with similar film grains as what I was hoping to achieve. I compiled a wish list and reached out to people to open discussions about collaborating. I landed on Samuel Adebayo (Sammy King Films), who has an incredible eye for cinematography and an impressive reel, but most importantly, a good spirit for teamwork. He brought on a team he could trust and assembled my Avengers - Ismail Adewunmi (Quam’s Money, Ponzi), the gaffer; Habeeb Olaitan (Kambili, The Therapist), the first assistant director; and others. For sound, Hamis Sulaiman, who had worked on over 300 episodes of Africa Magic’s original series, including Halita, served as boom operator as well as sound mixer. He was also a consummate professional; I couldn’t have wished for a better team. I have to say, there are so many talented professionals who have found their lane in film craft and continue to improve their technical skills.

Can you discuss the casting process, including how you chose the talent for the film and their contributions to the project?

I auditioned the cast virtually since we were still in lockdown, albeit at the end of it. I advertised an open casting call with a prompt, received audition tapes, and contacted people who I felt captured my characters’ essences in their videos. That was tough to whittle down because, again, there are so many gifted actors. Unsurprisingly, the people I chose, like Emmanuel Nwaife, to play “The Minister,” and Blessing Uzero to play “Juliet,” had other credits under their belt, so it’s clear other filmmakers had recognized and hopefully will continue to recognize their talent. My much younger cousin, Ilai, turned out to be a star child actor, juggling homework with being on set. A big component of this film is, of course, the duo of Matilda and Nanret, played by Christiana Vincent and Toria Ogiri, respectively. They hadn’t met until they were on set, but their chemistry was a dream come true. Suffice to say, I had an amazing team all-round. I will say, though, I had some industry veterans like Bimbo Manuel on my wish list, and I contacted him - he was incredibly pleasant when we communicated although at the time it wasn’t going to pan out due to our budget. I do hope we get to work on a feature in the near future; he’s someone whose craft I admire a lot.

Looking ahead, what projects or themes are you excited to explore as a screenwriter in the future?

I think I’ll still be in the social issue-realm, exploring class dynamics most especially. I have a number of projects in the pipeline, one television pilot and one feature film that touch specifically on class and what happens when someone in one of them decides to defy social conventions and cross the class lines to get what they want. Outside of that, I’m an ardent watcher of football, as a Liverpool FC fan, and a Formula One fanatic so when the opportunity arises to delve into sports, I will seize it. I have actually written a biopic script about the 2007 Spygate scandal in Formula One, so we’ll see where that goes.

Where would you like to see the Nigerian film industry heading, and what role do you envision playing in its growth and development?

I think the industry is in safe hands. There are a number of filmmakers I’m specifically a fan of, like Mami Wata’s CJ “Fiery” Obasi and Abba Makama, who directed The Lost Okoroshi, which I saw on Netflix. I’ve never seen anything like that; it’s an unconventional and filmmaker-defining story. I like when people step out of the box and write what they would love to see, that no one else has done before. And even better when that is drawn from the culture you grew up in or around. However, I would love to see more institutional support for us filmmakers - such stories come about from screenwriters and directors who believe in their vision doing anything and everything to fundraise, which can be tiresome for an independent filmmaker. If we had more incubators/residencies like the Red Sea International Film Festival Lodge, where filmmakers are supported with funding and other resources, to take their projects from idea to the screen, it would be such a game changer. I’m glad to see the evolution of the industry to where it is now, but I think there should be a pipeline for undiscovered writers, based on the merit of their work, because the undiscovered ideas are buried with them too.