Nigerian filmmaker Joseph Adesunloye was all smiles as his sophomore feature, Faces, won a hat-trick of awards in London at the 2019 BUFF awards on Saturday night. The anthology drama (which also stars singer Shingai Shoniwa from the Noisettes) won in the categories of best actor for Aki Omoshaybi, best actress for Terry Pheto and best feature for director Joseph Adesunloye. Shot in London and Paris, the film tracks 4 stories which cover domestic abuse, sexual assault, HIV and taboo relationships. Adesunloye and Omoshaybi were both in attendance at Ealing Studios to collect their awards.
Actress Terry Pheto, who wasn’t able to attend, tweeted about her win on social media and thanked the UK for the ‘crazy love’ they’ve shown.
The South African’s success has reached high places with Zindzi Mandela (South African ambassador to Denmark and youngest daughter of Nelson Mandela) tweeting about her win. It’s the 2nd time in BUFF awards history that a film has won in 3 categories. The last occasion was in 2016 when Invisible Men (directed by Meshack Enahoro) won best feature, best director and best actor.
There was more success for Nigerian talent on the night with writer Eno Enefiok winning a BUFF award for her script ‘Asylum’. Enefiok, whose script was performed as a live reading at the festival, received her prize from Kelly Edwards, head of talent development at HBO.
It was a mixed night for Lara and the Beat (directed by Tosin Coker), which was nominated in 3 categories but missed out to Adesunloye’s Faces wins.