Film

Phyllis

2011 · 16m · Fantasy · Drama

Phyllis is a moving and atmospheric portrait of a ‘psychic’ vampire, a woman obsessed with synthetic Nollywood dramas, that lives alone in Lagos, Nigeria. The central idea of this short experimental film is the practise and significance of wig-wearing in Nollywood film; a practise the director has invested with deeper psychological as well as science-fiction layers. Underpinning this central idea however is a critique of the unforgiving treatment of single women in Nollywood and Nigeria. The film is an example of what the director, Zina Saro-Wiwa, has termed “alt-Nollywood”, a genre that plays with and reworks certain narrative, stylistic and visual conventions of Nollywood. Phyllis explores the gothic possibilities of the Nollywood aesthetic creating a new kind of low-budget atmospheric film that is very much of Nollywood and yet subverts the genre. Using Nollywood to subvert Nollywood.

• Zina Saro-WiwaDirector · Writer · Producer · Director of Photography
• Sese SomoluProducer
• Ben GrinbergEditor

Release date

April 7, 2011

Status

Released

Original language

xx

Runtime

16m

Genres

Fantasy, Drama

• Tango Macbeth

  2012

• 

  Take Care of My Cat

  2001

• 

  Mirrors

  2014

• 

  So Different

  2009

• 

  Carnival

  1981

• 

  The Daisy Chain

  2008

• 

  The Hungry

  2017

• 

  A Stranger in the Woods

  2024

• Take Me

  2014

• 

  Sensation Seekers

  1927

• 

  Frozen River

  2008

• 

  The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

  2008