‘Wales, Nigeria and Cinema: The Berlin Years’ - Branwen Okpako
Filmmaker and Professor of Cinema and Digital Media, University of California, Davis.

Thursday 16th November 2023
Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University, Singleton Campus, Swansea SA2 8PZ

Branwen Okpako will evaluate how the experience of making the film about her Welsh heritage, Searching for Taid (1998), defined her aesthetics and filmmaking style. The lecture will also weave in Branwen’s personal relationship with the work of Richard Burton with reference to the film Cleopatra. ‘In cinema’, notes Okpako, ‘the audience is both the pilot and the passenger’ and her lecture will explore the role of cinema in the struggle to define oneself legibly to a society for whom one is invisible.

Previous Lectures

Speakers

25 April 2013:  George W. S. Abbey Sr.

'Wales, America and the Space Race'

4 October 2011:  John McGrath

‘From Blackwood to Brecon to Port Talbot’s Passion: The National Theatre Wales journey’