The Amazing Grace website

Just happened to stumble across this...

http://www.theamazinggracefilm.com

The Amazing Grace dramatizes the story of John Newton (1725-1807), an English slave trader, legend has it, experienced a divine epiphany during a mid-Atlantic slave shipment, renounced his profession, became a minister and wrote the time-honored hymn "Amazing Grace" (reputedly based on a traditional melody sung by the captive Africans).

It's directed by Jeta Amata, who I'm told is considered the Nigerian Tarantino (I've never actually seen any of his films, so I'm not sure why he has this rep) and stars the British actor Nick Moran (best known, I suppose, for his role as Eddie in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) as Newton.

This is definitely the most ambitious film to come out of Naija in years. For one thing, it's shot on 35mm, which has been unheard of in Nigerian cinema for... Hell, I don't know. A long-ass time. Nigerian filmmakers haven't shot on film at all for at least 15 years, and long before that they had shifted from 35mm to 16mm anyway. But I understand this film was made with considerable assistance from the government of Cross River State in Nigeria and was shot around the state capital of Calabar (where I grew up, by the way... and where we're planning to shoot).

Amata attempted to show this movie at Cannes last year, but poor planning prevented that from happening (what I heard is that he never officially submitted the film but rather just showed up at the festival with the print under his arm, expecting it to be screened! I don't know if this is true, though). It supposedly screened out of competition at this year's Cannes (even though it doesn't show up in any searches on the Cannes site) and was pretty well-received.

It's certainly shot beautifully from the clips I can see on the site. (The site design itself is kinda dodgy, though.)

Anyway, much props to Jeta... I think the dude is gonna do big things for Nigerian film.