TIFF 2024 Spotlight: FREEDOM WAY

Faced with unfavourable laws and incessant police harassment, three young co-founders struggle to keep their startup alive. A motorcyclist faces dark times with his family after losing his livelihood. doctor struggles with his conscience on the job while battling outdated government policies. A police pair find themselves on different sides of the law with a difficult choice to make.

Freedom Way centres young Nigerians from different walks of life and social class as their lives are disrupted by unreasonable governmental policies and the police taking advantage of citizens.

Written by Blessing Uzzi and directed by Olalekan Afolabi, Freedom Way does not shy away from depicting various issues affecting Nigerians today. Although the film is set in this part of the world, the themes it sheds light on are not unique to this area. The film tackles these themes in a bold way while also giving us a film with characters we become invested in. We see the struggles. We see the corruption, we feel the frustration.

Still from *Freedom Way* – Courtesy of TIFF

From his director’s statement, Afolabi explains that “the Nigerian Police Force is notorious for harassing and extorting young Nigerians for how they are dressed and groomed or for the gadgets in their possession, profiling them as criminals and fraudsters, sometimes even going as far as holding them in jails, until they are able to prove themselves innocent of the crimes they’ve been charged with despite zero evidence linking them to the allegations.”

I had the opportunity to speak with Uzzi and Afolabi in lead up to their film’s premiere at TIFF. They share details about making a very contemporaneous Nigerian film, which also depicts some universal sentiments. They also discuss some of the influences they referred to when planning and making the film, along with other great details.