Joyce Adewumi is the Director and Producer of We Are The Endless Roar, a film that gives a better understanding of traditional African cultural practices and beliefs.
We Are The Endless Roar will be screened April 3 as part of the Women In Media - Newark 2020 Film Festival. Adewumi's project is being shown virtually after COVID prompted the festival to postpone the showing that was to have taken placew at the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center in Red Bank, New Jersey. You can now see the film here.
Adewumi, an accomplished singer, choreographer and educator based in Harlem, in the Founder and President of the New York African Chorus Ensemble and heads the NYC Multiculural Festival. She came into WBGO to speak with News Director Doug Doyle.
Adewumi says her 74-minute film encourages descendants of Africa to return to their roots to learn the traditions of their ancestors and to discover what their true purpose in life is.
"The whole idea to take people to Nigeria is something that I had for a very long time, ocassionally I would take people. It's difficult to take about something they've never seen. People have heard about the negative aspects of Nigeria but never really understanding the culture, the spirituality, the business practice. Some people still thought that we were still living in trees and had no roads and that people were walking around naked. I knew that I needed to show this. So when I put out a call for people to travel with me to have an immersive experience there it was late in the game but I was able to get two people, which I think was divine. The two people were really able to really provide different context to the situation. In 2018 we all went to Nigeria. I got a film crew from Nigeria to film the whole project. We were in Nigeria for 21 days. Everyday it was filming, filming, filming. It was rehearsed at all."
We Are The Endless Roar provides authentic descriptions of places, beliefs and practices from Nigerian Kings, custodians of African spiritual knowledge and unbiased African Americans. Adewumi says they were are able to draw parallels between what they witnessed in Nigeria and what obtains in African American culture.
The journey covers four states in Nigeria i.e., Osun, Ekiti, Lagos, & Kebbi State.
Joyce Adewumi says the film was a passion for her, just one of many projects she's spearheaded over the years.
"Yes, I do a lot of things. I think it's just living. Living life and trying the best that you can to contribute to this global community that I'm a part of. We Are The Endless Roar is cumulation of everything that I do. The music, the community service, the need to demonstrate to everyone that there's only one race and that's the human race, the need for us to learn about others' cultures. We have so many similarities than differences. We Are The Endless Roar just wraps up everything that I do."
The Executive Director of The Women In Media - Newark 2020 Film Festival is Pamela Morgan. The festival runs virtually through October 21.
Click above to hear the entire conversation with Joyce Adewumi.
