‘Actors can be untrustworthy’ – Director Femi D. Ogunsanwo on role as showrunner for Africa Magic Original, ‘Omera’[Exclusive]

As African streaming platforms continue to grow, Africa Magic has solidified itself as a powerful storyteller, producing content that captures the diverse realities, dreams, and dramas of African life. With each new original series, Africa Magic broadens its storytelling palette, diving deep into tales that are both authentically local and universally resonant. Their latest original series, Omera, is no exception. The show has garnered widespread attention for its gripping narrative, nuanced characters, and unflinching exploration of themes that often go untold in mainstream media.

To understand the creative choices that make Omera so compelling, showrunner Femi Ogunsanwo speaks on the creative processes, challenges, and triumphs involved in bringing this story to life. As a seasoned director and producer, Ogunsanwo has a plethora of films to his credit. Some of them include Knockout Blessing (2018), ZR- 7 AKA The Red House Seven (2011), Finding Hubby, and Ojukokoro: Greed (2016).

Known for their ability to blend powerful storytelling with complex characters, Ogunsanwo gave us insights into the evolution of the series from an idea to a full-fledged production.

Let’s look at the art, ambition, and powerful storytelling that define this Africa Magic original.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

I believe all my years directing shows like Enahke, Dimeji, Ajoche, and the likes prepared me to be a showrunner. As a director on those projects, I got to work with two showrunners: James Omokwe, who was the showrunner and EP on Ajoche and Victor Sanchez Aghahowa who was the showrunner on Dimeji and Enahke. So, today my show running style has taken something from both of them and I’ve added my own style to it. I am Femi as a person and I have worked with these people multiple times and took the things I like the most about the jobs.

Omera will turn out to be a better show than MOA. That’s because I’m big on learning and growing. I’m like ‘Oh, what did we learn this week, this month, what did we learn in the entire process of Masquerades of Aniedo? I do it weekly and monthly. If a guy in my previous work couldn’t do something, I ask myself, ‘Is there someone better within my budget?’ If the answer is, ‘yes’, I go look for that person. The journey creatively is one of growth. Almost all the actors in Omera, I have never worked with before. There was a certain level of unknowing there. Most of them I cast based on their auditions. On MOA, they were either cast based on working with them before or seen their work on a previous series. On this one, I was a bit more intentional. Masquerades was my first show, so I wanted trusted hands.

That “this your bad behaviour, there’s no need to be afraid of me, I am not going to be the one to punish you, life would.” In the first episode, we see him slap his boss because he will leave Nigeria. He relocated to the village because Lagos was too hot for him. He thought he was moving to something bigger. At the end of episode one, we see his uncle’s words come to pass. Burning bridges isn’t a great thing. I hope people learn from that. There’s a big lesson in just one episode. I want my audience to enjoy the subliminal messages that are there.

The show started airing while we were still shooting. We have sponsors. We seem very special to people out there because we are under pressure to deliver. We submit episodes, and once they air, they are flown off the shelf. Actors and crew members even after signing a six months contract with you, they’d hurry out and sometimes want to bring a replacement. My team and I say ‘no’ to replacements like that. Rather, we bring our own replacements and we let the actor or crew member who is leaving know about this. Sometimes they make excuses just to go to other sets and return. Sometimes we let them go.

You can come back but if the person we’ve brought is doing a better job than you, we can’t take you back. We often bring experienced people anyway to avoid cases like this. On MOA, we had someone who began to complain of stomach upset three days prior and we gave him meds but he’d just pocket it and after a few days, he asked to go home. He said he went to see a doctor on an off day and whatnot. We believed it but I knew the set he went to. I promoted someone who had been working hard as a PA and brought someone to replace the PA. He came back and I told him, I knew and I had to let him go. Unlike film, we don’t have the luxury to pick up scenes, so we can’t afford to have actors or crew members leave.

We air five episodes every week, every episode draws the audience closer and every Friday episode draws them even closer.

Visually, it looks better. The audience is more experienced, and wiser and has more options for what to watch. And so we have to up our game and prepare the actors for their performance to improve the quality of our work and it has indeed improved. When I was a director on Dimeji, there wasn’t much competition; no Netflix, no Prime. Now there’s competition everywhere and we are forced to up our game. We have evolved.

Like in everything we do, there’s growth. Everybody is better, telling stories as best they can. We hope to tell relatable stories, like Omera, whose main character wanted to japa and couldn’t. There are younger people in the game now. At the beginning of my career, there was no one to talk to like this. But now things have changed and I foresee even bigger changes in the future.

Remind yourself that if you do not do great work, you will not gain recognition. If you half-ass it, people will not watch your work. If I’m only concerned about making money, no one will watch my next work. I have two films coming out next year, one of them is ‘The Lagos Job.’

Collaborate with others. To aspiring writers and showrunners, spend too much time talking about what you want to do. Talking about it; you will find yourself wasting time. If you want to be a writer, write films, a showrunner, work on films, TV and the like. If you want to shoot, shoot, don’t talk. Big production companies commission experienced production houses. Collaborate horizontally and vertically. Use a lot of emails, dot your i’s and cross your t’s. Have a contract drawn and make sure you are clear on the terms of collaboration before you proceed.