Finding Your Place in Cinema

C.J. “Fiery” Obasi grew up watching Hammer House horror films and reading Stephen King novels. As a child, he developed a knack for drawing comics based on all his favorite movies and superheroes at the time. Comics which he would sell to his peers much to their delight. Much later on in life, C.J. would put aside his degree in Computer Science from the University of Nigeria (UNN) to launch into filmmaking, full time. Obasi, also called "Fiery” or “The Fiery One” premiered his debut feature “OJUJU” - a zero budget film at Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) 2014, where it won the award for “Best Nigerian Film”. OJUJU has screened in over 30 film Festivals, receiving major acclaim from the likes of IndieWire, Screen Anarchy and The Hollywood Reporter. OJUJU has gone on to become a cult classic, being listed among several “Best Zombie Film” lists, and more recently been optioned by a major studio for series adaptation.

Obasi’s sophomore feature film “O-Town”, a crime thriller arthouse piece, screened at AFRIFF 2015 and Gothenburg Film Festival 2016. It was nominated for several awards, including the Screen Nation Awards UK, and the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). Obasi’s short film “Hello, Rain” based on Hello, Moto by world-renowned author Nnedi Okorafor had its world premiere at the Oscar-qualifying International Competition of the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen in May 2018, and has gone on to screen in over 40 festivals, including a headline screening at Southbank Centre in London, Fantasia Film Festival where it won the Special Mention of the Jury prize and BFI London Film Festival where it was a nominee for the Short Film. Hello, Rain has since been featured on CNN and BBC for its strides in African-futurism and fantasy.

In 2019, Obasi served as a jury member at the Durban International Film Festival. He is currently in post-production for latest feature film project, Mami Wata – a female-driven black and white fantasy film developed with Ouaga Film Lab, Less is More (Poland, Romania, and France), EAVE (Luxembourg, Serbia and Germany) and Durban FilmMart (South Africa). Mami Wata was selected for Final Cut Workshop at the Venice Film Festival 2021, and has since received post-production funding from Les Ateliers Yennenga in FESPACO and the Swiss Fund Visions Sud Est.

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