The Man Died, dir: Awam Amkpa (European Film Premiere)
Film Screening, followed by a Conversation between Wole Soyinka and the director
Film Screening, Conversation
Su., 3.8.2025
19:00
Safi Faye Hall
In English
Free entry

Awam Amkpa, The Man Died (2024), film still. Courtesy of the artist
Bwa Kayiman–Lakouzémi closes with the European premiere of Awam Amkpa’s film The Man Died (2024), based upon the 1972 memoir The Man Died: The Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka recounting the writer’s twenty-two months imprisonment during the Nigerian Civil War. After attempting to mediate between the warring sides, Soyinka was viewed as a political threat and detained without trial by the military regime. The film depicts his time in solitary confinement and the mental and physical toll of incarceration, while also elaborating on political resistance and the role of writers under repression.
Amkpa is a director, playwright, curator, and professor currently working between New York and Abu Dhabi. Soyinka is a prolific author, scholar, political essayist, playwright, and poet. Among many other recognitions, he was the first Nigerian (and also the first African) author to be made a Nobel laureate in Literature in 1986.
Following the screening Soyinka and Amkpa engage in conversation about the adaptation process, the transformative and political impact of artistic expression, and questions around various forms of activism confronting state abuse of power.