Netflix has released Lisabi, a new film created by Lateef Adedimeji and Mo Bimpe. The pair claims that there were significant hurdles encountered throughout the film’s production. Speaking on City 105.1FM, Lateef and Mo Bimpe shared some of the difficulties they had while filming the picture. These are their words.
1. Lateef Put His Car Up For Sale
Funding for the movie was a lot for ‘Lisabi’ which producer Lateef Adedimeji reveals. In fact, the budget was way more than he expected, so much so that he actually put his car up for sale. Lateef said:
LATEEF ADEDIMEJI: We had a particular budget for this film and we had to spend like times 5 of it. It was tough. Extremely tough. At a point, I told my wife but eventually we didn’t do it. I put up my car already for sale, that ‘ogbeni if I get somebody wey go buy this car now’, but luckily for me, I no see buyer. I was able to get help from few people. Like I asked ‘can you buy this car? I need money,’ and then they said ‘instead of me to buy it from you, how much are you looking for? Take this, when you finish, just return it for me.’ That was the luck that we had.
2. The Lead Actress Became Unavailable and a Reluctant Mo Bimpe Had to Step In
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In the movie, Mo Bimpe plays a lead role, but in actuality, she wasn’t initially meant to play this role. According to her, another actress had already been picked for that role but last minute changes happened and the actress became unavailable, so Mo Bimpe had to take up the role, and it was very tasking on her. She said:
MO BIMPE: When they came to me with you have to take the female lead role, I was like ‘ah ah, we already have an actor for that, why are you asking me to play the role?’ Then they told me the actor won’t be available and I was like ‘no, I can’t do this.’ That’s because I wasn’t prepared for it. For a movie like this, you have to prepare for it and I was just there as a producer and manager. I had not trained, I had not joined them in doing language training. I wasn’t prepared to act, so when they came to me, it was a lot on me. It was A LOT.
3. The Cost Was A LOT
Even just building one pool for the movie cost 5 million naira, and that is just one drop in the bucket of the expenses needed to produce this movie. Lateef Adedimeji gave the instance of the pool saying:
LATEEF ADEDIMEJI: My director is a very creative person. We didn’t have the idea of a pool before in the film, he just came up with it, and then we had to build a pool. And then we just shot that single scene in that pool, and we had to build a pool immediately for like 5 million. Just for that scene alone, just for that scene to go. And then for me, I like the fact that when you tell me that this is what you want, and I see that it adds value to the film, I go all out to make sure that I get it. It wasn’t easy in any way, but I think I’m lucky to have good people around me.