Nollywood Diaspora | 27 November 2010 00:17 CET

Homecoming of Afro-American Kings and Queens

By vg

American based Nigerian producers are all out to make an indelible statement in the nation's movie industry.

Just few months after US based Chineze Anyaene's multiple award winning movie, “Ïje: The Journey”ruled the cinemas in the country, coupled with the current noise generated in the cinemas by another movie produced by a Nigerian film maker based in America, “Anchor Baby', movie bluffs are about to witness the premiere of another bar raising movie from outside the shores of the country.

The movie, “Between Kings and Queens”is produced by a US based Nigerian film maker, Joy Dickson.
Shot last summer on locations in Downtown Austin, the movie is making its world premiere in the country on the 3rd of December, at Silverbird Cinemas, Ozone, Genesis, and Deluxe cinemas. It will later be moved to Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Accra respectively.

At a press-preview of the movie at Ozone, Yaba, within the week, the producer hinted her plans to tour theatres in American and other European countries with the movie.

“Between Kings and Queens”, starring our own Jim Iyke, Dajuan Johnson, Nakia Burrise and Tenton Rostedt, she said is a romantic drama about an African prince who escapes his royal duties for a time and experiences life incognito in the United States. He gets on the wrong side of the neighborhood drug dealers and falls in love with the ex-girlfriend of the ringleader.

If it sounds as though Eddie Murphy already made this movie a while back, you may be on to something – but Between Kings & Queens is not a comedy. “I am not a funny person,” Dickson admits, adding “I just wanted to convey a message without being too serious.

There's this wall between Africans and African-Americans in terms of how they perceive one another, which doesn't make sense to me. I tried to figure out why they reason like they do. Although I wrote the story eight, nine years ago, the essence of this was to enlighten people.”

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