Project Detail

Modupe

A hand holding a lit taper candle lights a larger pillar candle placed on a metal candle holder, with a dark blurred background.

Synopsis

An experimental documentary that unfolds as a ceremony of queer belonging, inheritance, and sound. At its heart is a dialogue with Afro-Cuban priestess and musician Amelia Pedroso, whose legacy is invoked through archival traces, letters, and performance. Narrated as a letter to an ancestor, the film situates the search for connection within an interior, oceanic dreamscape where water, memory, and ritual become both setting and subject.
Cinematically, MODUPE moves between a stylised ensemble rehearsal and a sacred library-archive. The ensemble of voice, drum, and dance provides the film’s pulse, collapsing rehearsal and ritual into one. Deep blue light, reflective surfaces, and submerged imagery create a sensorial architecture that is both intimate and expansive, with water presence throughout evoking both flood and transformation.
Formally, the film resists linear storytelling, privileging atmosphere, rhythm, and sonic immersion. Objects, archives, and sacred materials hold the same cinematic weight as bodies in performance, reframing the archive as altar and sound as shrine. Narrative unfolds through resonance rather than resolution, drawing the viewer into a space of listening and reflection. MODUPE proposes cinema as a vessel for inheritance, where identity is fluid, memory is alive and liberation is lived through sound.

Details

Year: 2026
Type of project: Shorts
Running time: 18 min
Director: Evan Ifekoya
Producer: Ese Onojeruo
Executive Producer: Hannah Bush Bailey
Editor: Hannah Oliver
Screenwriter: Evan Ifekoya
Director of Photography: Morgan Spencer
Composer: Eden Alero
Principal cast: Ayebainemi Abieyuwa ése, Eden Alero, Evan Ifekoya
Assistant Director: Gesiye Souza-Okpofabri
Focus Puller: Stephen Ofori
Gaffer: Cat Castro
Spark: Dean Charles
MUA: Blessing Kambanga
Set Designer: Rema Kashay
Production Assistant: Erin O’Garro
Production Assistant: Anna-Maria Tesfaye
Production Assistant: Silva Gordon-Valenzuela
Runner: Emem Usanga
Runner: Nia Fekri
BTS Photographer: Puer Deorum
Sound Engineer: Joel Bartholemew
Additional footage: Evan Ifekoya, Hannah Oliver
Narrator: Evan Ifekoya
Sound Mix and Master: Kiera Coward-Deyell
Recording Studio: Noatune Studios

Genre

Biography Black Dance Experimental LGBTQIA+ Music

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Supported by Made of Truth: BFI Doc Society Short Film Fund

Artarche Production

Ese Onojeruo
52 Nash Road
London
SE4 2QJ

jadeonojeruo@gmail.com

Page updates

This page was last updated on 19th January 2026. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

Drawing on a location test filmed in Uganda and an email exchange with the scout, this short film captures cinema’s ties to land and its entanglement with colonial imaginaries, binding the fiction of filmmaking with state-building. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

Experimental

Chuuraa

Director: Evgenia Arbugaeva

Year: 2026

In the remote Siberian Arctic, an Indigenous Sakha scientist descends into the depths of the melting permafrost. Searching for an ancient creature, he makes his way through the dangerous, claustrophobic caves to the mythical realm of the Underworld. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere

Climate / Environment Science

Children No More: "Were and Are Gone"

Director: Hilla Medalia

Year: 2025

Israeli peace activists hold silent vigils in Tel Aviv, displaying photos of Gaza's young victims. Despite facing public backlash, their wordless demonstrations powerfully highlight war's human cost. Official Selection DOC NYC 2025 Academy Awards 2026 - Best Documentary Short Film - Nomination

Human Rights War