The film “Pasa Faho” follows a charming shoe salesman and immigrant from Nigeria who is just making ends meet. When his 12-year-old son, Obinna, who has assimilated into Australian culture, moves across the country to live with him. NYOTA spoke to producers Mimo Mukii and Ivy Mutuku about casting the film, researching Igbo culture, and how essential it was to have Melbourne as the backdrop for the film.
What went into the research and planning to make sure that the Igbo culture is represented in a way that felt authentic for the team behind this movie and larger community?
The script, the vision of Pasa Faho, was already rich in the details of the Igbo culture and community. With Kalu being an Igbo man himself, our starting point was very easy. As producers, we still wanted to delve into the culture for ourselves. Every aspect, from language and customs, colours, songs, to emotional motifs and rhythm of the story had to reflect lived truth rather than surface representation. Our research process was both intimate and communal. The director, Kalu, drew from his own family’s migration story, and we worked closely to ensure that those nuances, the cadence of Igbo speech, the symbolism in food, clothing, gesture, and color were honored in every department. We had long formal and informal conversations with Igbo elders, creatives, and first-generation families across Australia. We attended cultural events and learned some basic Igbo – it was a beautiful process to delve into, which ultimately helped us keep the authenticity of Pasa Faho.
Having all worked together on What’s in a Name? (2023) and The Moon and Me (2021), how did the production of this full feature differ from your previous shorts?
Working on Pasa Faho after those two great short films felt like both a continuation and an evolution. Our shorts taught us how to tell intimate stories with vision and emotional honesty, but stepping into feature-length required us to expand that same sensitivity to a larger scale, which came with higher stakes and limitations. A lot of it was beyond the creative – we needed to build on our systems of care, structure, and trust to sustain 5 weeks of shooting, in comparison to shooting a short film on one weekend. The scale of a feature film demanded deeper thought-out logistical planning, more robust collaboration, and the responsibility of cultivating a safe and creative space and tone. The outcome was ultimately that Pasa Faho was a bigger project, but it was the culmination of everything we had already been doing.
The movie required some language-specific casting and also featured a number of newcomers. What were your priorities when casting for this film and what did the process look like?
Casting for Pasa Faho was one of the most difficult and delicate parts of making Pasa Faho, but it was ultimately very rewarding. The story lives within the Igbo-Australian context, so language and cultural fluency were non-negotiable. We needed to find performers who could carry the emotional core of the script and characters whilst embodying all the nuances that come with being fluent in that language. E.g., rhythm, humour, etc. Our priorities were never experience; we couldn’t do that with the limited pool of Nigerian actors in Australia. We had to look for people who felt connected to the story, whether through heritage or lived experience. Most of our actors were first-time actors, and we discovered them through community outreach, word of mouth, and maybe a little begging and pleading with friends and family. The process was very immersive and relational, but it was all worth it in the end.
What were the key themes or messages you wanted to express through this movie?
Some themes we wanted to explore through this film are father-child relationships, the preservation of culture, cross-cultural family dynamics, economic imbalances, migrant experiences, religion, and the idea of ‘success’. These themes resonate across cultural boundaries and speak to universal human experiences, but we explore these themes through the lens of a unique and specific community. But what is at the heart of the film is the relationship between Azubuike and his son, Obinna, and how they try to connect when things fall apart. This is what continues to resonate most with audiences so far!
How essential was Naarm (Melbourne) as the backdrop of the movie? And why the suburbs specifically?
Naarm has wonderful pockets of migrant communities that often center around suburban markets. An important part of the story is Azubuike’s participation and standing in his local community, which is multicultural and at risk of gentrification. This is based in truth, as Naarm’s migrant communities get pushed further away from the city, and the market centres start to disappear. The same can be said for cities across Australia, where gentrification is breaking up these hubs. Although there are Igbo and Nigerian communities all over Australia, we wanted to make a film in our hometown that would be recognizable to people in Naarm. But ultimately, the film does not name a specific suburb or city, and it is a story that can happen in any Australian city.
