Desiring Bollywood is a film project in collaboration with TIFA Working Studios in Pune, India. It depicts a fictionalized account of the true story of Ola Jason’s time in Delhi as a Nigerian film student who, despite various challenges, has become a successful actor in Hindi and regional cinemas. The project, based on a screenplay by Ola Jason, will recreate his experiences in India through improvisational theatre techniques.

 

This collaboration is part of a long term ethnographic and historiographic study that seeks to understand the postcolonial significance of Indian cinema in various countries in Africa as well as the representational politics of films produced in India as they depict Africa and Africans.