Sudani from Nigeria
Sudani from Nigeria is a 2018 Indian Malayalam-language sports drama film written and directed by Zakariya Mohammed, with dialogues co-written by Muhsin Parari. Shyju Khalid was the cinematographer, who also produced the film with Sameer Thahir. It stars Soubin Shahir, with Samuel Abiola Robinson as the titular character.
Sudani from Nigeria was released in India on 23 March 2018. It met with widespread critical acclaim and was a commercial success at the box office. The film won five awards at the 2018 Kerala State Film Awards, including Best Screenplay, Best Film with Popular Appeal and Aesthetic Value, Best Debut Director, Best Actor, and Best Character Actress. At the 2018 National Film Awards, it won the award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam and Savithri Sreedharan received a Special Mention for her performance in the film. It was included in The Hindu's top 25 Malayalam films of the decade.
Plot
The movie is set in a rural town in Malappuram district in the state of Kerala. Majeed is an unmarried young football coach, who is the manager of a local team, named 'MYC Accode', which participates in Sevens football matches. He manages to recruit three Nigerian talented players to his team, who catapult the team's fame. Although successful in matches, Majeed, his friends and players are financially set-back.Due to an unfortunate accident, his team's star player Samuel "Sudu" Robinson is hospitalised and forced to rest for a month. Afraid he'll not be able to afford the hospital charges, Majeed decides to let Samuel rest at the former's house, where he and his mother are the only inhabitants, with occasional visits from his step-father who works as a security guard. Samuel becomes a spectacle for the townsfolk and many people visit the recovering "Sudani from Nigeria". Majeed and Samuel bond over time and share their personal life stories with each other.
Majeed hates and does not talk to his step-father due to emotional attachment with his late father. He also resents his mother for marrying a second time following the death of her husband, and refuses to talk to her unless absolutely necessary. Samuel, on the other hand, lost both his parents in the civil war and lived in a refugee camp with his grandmother and two sisters. Samuel only left in hope of being able to financially support his family. Trouble comes looking for them when an article in the newspaper, showing a recovering Samuel, Majeed, his friends and neighbours, attracts the attention of police officials who come asking for Samuel and his passport.
Samuel learns that his grandmother has died, and wants to immediately leave in order to be with his sisters. Chaos ensues when they discover the passport to be missing, and Majeed and his friends looks for it everywhere, but in vain. Majeed decides to apply for a duplicate passport, prompting Samuel to reveal that his passport is fake. He was not able to legally acquire a passport due to being a refugee. The passport is eventually recovered and Majeed manages to buy a ticket for Samuel.
Samuel bids the town and Majeed an emotional farewell. Returning from the airport, Majeed decides to mend relationship with his family. He meets his step-father and brings him back home to his mother's surprise and happiness.
Production
The film was produced by cinematographers Sameer Thahir and Shyju Khalid and directed by debutant Zakariya. Soubin Shahir co-star along with Nigerian actor Samuel Abiola Robinson. With an idea to make an independent film, Zakariya Muhammed initially approached cinematographer-director Rajeev Ravi to find out if he could produce the film under his company Collective Phase One. Ravi suggested to make the film in a bigger scale and that Soubin would be apt for the role of Majeed. Ravi himself contacted Soubin for the film. Later, Muhsin Parari, who co-wrote the dialogues insisted Zakariya to approach Sameer, who agreed to produce the film with Khalid. Zakariya found Robinson through the internet.The film is set in that backdrop of Sevens football matches held during November in the Malabar region of Kerala, but according to Zakariya, it is not a sports film, rather a "comic family drama". The film marks Robinson's debut foreign film. He plays Samuel, a Nigerian footballer brought to Kerala to play the All India Sevens Football match in Malappuram. Soubin plays his manager, Majeed. Despite Nigeria being popular for football, Robinson was not interested in the game, he said: "I belong to the 0.001 per cent population of my country that is not interested in football". He underwent training in Kerala. The film had a 35-day long shoot in Malappuram, few scenes were shot in Nigeria and Ghana.