COCONUT HEAD GENERATION

SAT 02 NOV | RICH MIX, 8:45 PM | TICKETS

The term “coconut head generation” originated as an insult targeting today’s Nigerian twentysomethings, who have been sweepingly mischaracterized as lazy and apathetic. Reclaiming the term as an ironic self-moniker, a growing number of the nation’s youth are instead proving themselves to be politically and morally engaged. In this invigorating observational documentary, Kinshasa-born, French-raised filmmaker Alain Kassanda captures the words and emotions of students at the University of Ibadan in southwestern Nigeria. The country’s first university, it was founded in 1948 and is still reckoning with its colonial British legacy. Here, students have begun a weekly film club, where screenings of work by such directors as Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, John Akomfrah, and Med Hondo instigate intellectual conversation. Immersing himself with students engaged in spirited debates over contemporary Nigerian society’s ever-present power imbalances and sometimes heated discussions around ethnicity, feminism, and gender, Kassanda proves to be a forceful new voice in nonfiction by ceding the floor to a vibrant new generation.