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 Now an award-winning actor, he has brought his story to cinemas
in his country of origin - Nigeria. He hopes his directorial
debut will be part of a "healing" process for people who sought
foster care to give their children a better life.
Farming, the film's title, takes its name from a term used to
describe the practice of Nigerian immigrants fostering their
children to white families in Britain so they could work, study
and save money. It refers to the idea that the children were
"farmed" out.
The aim of the practice, mainly prevalent from the 1960s to
1980s, was for the immigrants to eventually return to Nigeria.
"Perhaps this can provide a healing in some sense but ultimately
a re-evaluation of our child-rearing processes,"
Akinnuoye-Agbaje told Reuters at the film's Nigerian premiere on
Saturday in the country's commercial capital, Lagos, after first
being screened in London last month.
"I'm hoping that it will create a dialogue and a collective
therapy for those that are still suffering, and a healing
because many of the Nigerian farmers don't actually go back for
the children that were fostered," he said.
As a six-week-old baby in 1967, Akinnuoye-Agbaje was left in the
care of a white family in Tilbury, a southeast England town
around 20 miles east of central London. And, as a youth, he
joined a gang of skinheads - a far-right subculture often
associated with racist violence in Britain.
Membership in a gang that previously tormented him ended when
his biological father, who had relocated to Nigeria where he
worked as a barrister, paid for him to attend a private school
in the affluent English county of Surrey.
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That step was taken after he was contacted by Akinnuoye-Agbaje's
foster mother.
"It is an important part of British history as well as Nigerian
culture, so to be able to bring a story that I have harboured for so
long home to the Nigerian audience is... a wonderful sense of
accomplishment," said Akinnuoye-Agbaje.
The film - which cost 3 million pounds ($3.89 million) to make and
stars British actor Kate Beckinsale as the foster mother - was
greeted with cheers and applause in a packed cinema hall in the
upmarket Lagos district of Lekki.
Thousands of Nigerians leave the west African country each year in
search of a better life abroad - often in Europe and the United
States. Some of those who attended the screening said it was
interesting to see a depiction of life overseas that differed from
their expectations.
"When it comes to racism... we normally focus on America but it was
nice to see what actually happened in the UK (United Kingdom)," said
broadcaster Simi Drey.
Similarly, a cinematographer who goes by the name T-Cent said he was
surprised by the portrayal of people typically seen as having
benefited from life in a nation richer than Nigeria, where most
people live on less than $2 a day.
"We look at these people and we say they are very, very privileged,
but then everyone has their internal struggles," he said.
(Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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