Principal photography has wrapped on Daddy Bear, a feature film written, directed and produced by a women-led team, and the project has now entered post-production with support from Africa No Filter’s Entertainment and Media Hubs Program.
Set in Abuja, Daddy Bear follows Fahd, a father raising a newborn and a pre-teen daughter after losing his wife to childbirth. The film explores fatherhood, caregiving, grief and Muslim family life.
The film stars Jammal Ibrahim as Fahd, Ame Aiyejina as Zahra, Chidera Osadebe as Aisha, Ummi Baba Ahmed as Aunty Kike, Japaree Ben-Hirki as Khadijah and Musa Muhammad Abdullahi as Imam Zakariyyah.
Daddy Bear began when co-director Hajarat Alli brought the story to Cardinal StoryWorks, the script development unit of Cardinal Productions, where she and co-director Korede Azeez developed it together before Alli submitted the project for Africa No Filter’s support. Alli is a 2021 alumna of the EbonyLife Creative Academy, where she first wrote the award-winning short film, Monitoring Spirit.
“It has been surreal watching Daddy Bear move from an idea on the page to a story that began to take root in everyone who worked on it. Seeing the impact it had on the crew gives me hope that it will leave that same impact on everyone who watches it,”
said Alli.
Azeez, whose credits include the Netflix-UNESCO anthology film Halima’s Choice and her feature debut It Blooms in June under the First Features Initiative, most recently directed With Difficulty Comes Ease. Daddy Bear is the second film on Cardinal Productions’ slate.
“From a story Hajarat brought into our writing room to a finished film, this has been a real journey, and I’m glad to have co-directed her debut feature with her. Daddy Bear is the second film on Cardinal’s slate, and we’re looking forward to everything we build from here.” said Azeez.
Producer Fulfilment “Fuchi” Nwaturuocha, who has been involved with Daddy Bear since the screenplay stage, previously produced Azeez’s With Difficulty Comes Ease and the Ekene Som Mekwunye film Ewo. She is also the Co-founder of Riverside Productions, an independent Nigerian production company focused on developing and producing films and stories for local and international audiences.
Nwaturuocha’s connection to Daddy Bear is also deeply personal. She grew up with a widowed father and experienced, through her pre-teen and teenage years, the grief, uncertainty and adjustment that followed the loss of her mother, as well as the challenges of navigating life with a grieving father while growing up as a girl.
“As a producer, I’m increasingly interested in the business of what happens after a film is made, how we connect stories with the right audiences, build sustainable revenue pathways and give independent producers a realistic opportunity to recoup and reinvest in their work. For many young and emerging filmmakers, the traditional distribution landscape can be difficult to navigate, and the pathway from release to meaningful audience reach and financial recoupment is not always clear or accessible.
My experience with theatrical distribution last year reinforced the need to think more creatively about how independent films can travel. With Daddy Bear, I’m interested in exploring community cinema as both an audience-development and distribution strategy: taking the film into communities, creating intimate and shared viewing experiences, and building a closer relationship between the story, its audience and the people investing in bringing it to life. I see this not as an alternative to the cinema model, but as an opportunity to expand the ecosystem and to explore new routes to audiences, generate value around the film and develop a more sustainable, community-centred approach to independent film distribution.”
said Nwaturuocha.
Daddy Bear is an upcoming Nigerian feature film from Cardinal Productions Ltd, exploring fatherhood, grief and community through the story of a father raising his children after the loss of his wife. The film is slated for release later this year.
