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2026 · Documentary · In Production

Life Turns Man Up and Down

Written & Directed by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún · Produced by OlongoAfrica

A documentary on Onitsha Market Literature — the pamphlet trade that ran out of the market town of Onitsha for roughly two decades either side of Nigerian independence. Between 1947 and 1966, clerks, traders, teachers, and school-leavers wrote short books, romance, courtroom drama, political biography, and advice on love and money, sold from market stalls for a few pence and read by people who had never been anyone's intended audience for a book. The film follows the custodians who kept the pamphlets when no institution was preserving them, and traces what became of that writing — including how Onitsha, three decades later, became the engine room of Nigeria's home-video industry.

The cast includes linguist Uju Anya, private librarian Kurt Thometz, scholars James Yeku and Onookome Okome, and Elspeth Healey and Elizabeth MacGonagle of the University of Kansas. Advisers include Karin Barber, Stephanie Newell, and Georges Ekwensi. Shooting has taken the production to New York, Lawrence (Kansas), and Maryland, with stops planned in San Francisco and Edmonton before moving to Onitsha and Lagos.