Chuko Esiri

Chuko Esiri is a Nigerian-born filmmaker. Born in Warri, Nigeria, he was raised in Lagos. He went to college first in England, and then studied at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in the United States. The brothers produced two shorts while in film school, Besida and Goose. The Esiri brothers' debut feature Eyimofe premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020. He wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Mrs. Dalloway adaptation Clarissa, distributed by Neon, and co-directed with his twin brother Arie Esiri.

Quotes

• We found our way here simultaneously, but through very different routes. Arie was on track towards becoming a cinematographer, he felt that’s what he wanted to do. And I was coming up through being a producer, which is what I thought I wanted to do. I think the desire was cemented when we were both in college, but again, we were seeing it happen simultaneously, because I was at university in the north of England, he was at university in the south of England. But watching films and storytelling and performing, even if it’s only for ourselves, has always been a feature of our lives. I think some of it has to do with growing up in a house with frustrated artists for parents. Our mother is a lawyer, but she wanted to write, and our father’s an entrepreneur, but he wanted to paint. Some of that bleeds into you. When you’re young, you watch these adults tell you to go get a job and be responsible. And I guess a piece of you recognizes that they’re not completely happy in said jobs. So I think some of it lies there. But we came here at the same time on different paths.
  • [1]
• The node of the idea came when I moved back to Nigeria a couple of years after college. I was there doing my National Youth Service. Arie had done his the year prior, and I came afterwards. [Before then,] we were only engaging with the country in a superficial way. Even though we went back every holiday and our parents’ lives and businesses and networks were all here, and our friends, and all of that — you come back from school, you’re here for no longer than eight weeks, which is the long summer holiday, you’re not there to try to make a living. It’s all fun times. That’s what holidays are. The emotional responsibility doesn’t exist really when you’re a teenager, you’re not paying attention to the larger things around you. The state of the place doesn’t weigh as much upon you because you’re not paying for gas and you’re not making a meager salary and you’re not stuck with having to apply for your passport and your visas or all these things that your parents are taking care of.
  • [2]
• So you’re not engaging with the place in a substantive manner. And this was the first time that was happening — one was dealing with all of it and it was very, very uncomfortable. And my immediate desire was to go back to what was familiar and comfortable and efficient and less arduous. That was where the kernel of the story came. [The treatment] was part of my application for NYU. And it evolved over time, as the migrant crisis became a thing. Mainly it evolved as my time in Nigeria extended and I began to — I don’t know if I fell in love with my captor, the Stockholm Syndrome, or if it’s just adaptation, but I grew to really love the place, and it became a wellspring of massive inspiration, and purpose, and drive. So as that was happening, the story changed and evolved, but at its heart, this idea of wanting to leave and wanting to be somewhere better can be traced back to that experience.
  • [3]