Making a VR Doc With A Community: Telling the Story of the Niger Delta Struggle
“It’s about harnessing a new medium to change people’s perspectives,” Chinyere Nnadi, CEO of Sustainability International, told Contrast VR on our latest virtual reality documentary, Oil In Our Creeks.
The film takes the viewer into the heart of the Niger Delta, highlighting the struggle of a young woman, Lessi, in the oil capital of Nigeria that has been devastated through multiple oil spills over the last decades. The documentary is in many ways intimately intertwined with the personal histories of the team behind the documentary. The majority of the team are Nigerians, whose backgrounds informed their investment into the story, as well as fueled their drive to use VR as a tool to bring the story to an international platform.
Director Zahra Rasool notes that “being able to work with so many Nigerians on the film led to a much deeper and nuanced understanding of the issue.” Oil in Our Creeks is co-produced by Rasool and Uzodinma Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation, with production assistance by Sustainability International (SI), a non-profit working to alleviate poverty and corruption in Africa.
We interviewed a few members of the team to learn about their experiences that led them to become involved in the film.
For Chinyere Nnadi, the founder and CEO of Sustainability International (SI), the oil spills are part of who he his: “My parents are environmental engineers because of the oil spills in the Delta. They grew up seeing the Delta transition from pre oil spill to post oil spill. That was their childhood. They’re invested in it, and it’s part of who they are. So when we would go back, they would explain to us about the poison in the ground. They passed that down to us. It’s just something we knew, it became part of our history. I saw VR as a way to replicate this experience for everyone.”
Amara Uyanna, former development associate of SI, provided production assistance on the film and helped coordinate on the ground. With a background in chemical engineering, Amara is invested in both bringing awareness to the oil spills and how it affects the economy. In the past, she had spent time in the Niger Delta through her work for ExxonMobil. “I had been on the oil and gas company side, on the money making side, and I saw how we were disenfranchising these people. It was important to come back to the other side, to the affected side, to see how we can make a difference, how we can be a part of the solution.”
Becoming involved in working to support the communities affected by oil companies transformed the way that Amara understood the issue. “I had the big idea of what was going on, but definitely Oil In Our Creeks was the most personalized it had gotten for me. This was me seeing these people in a different way. As people first. Before everything else.”
Ré Olunuga, the classical composer for the film based in Lagos, also speaks to the way the medium of VR personalized the larger issue. “It’s a story that most Nigerians, and I’m sure a lot of people around the world, have experienced. A version of how certain types of business values have had negative impacts on environments. Especially with people, or communities who are not equipped to go against huge conglomerates and industries. I see this around me, living in Lagos, and visiting friends and family all over the country, it’s a constant thing. And the film personalizes one of the people involved. And I’m glad I was involved in that. I found Lessi’s story very inspiring.”
Yet, Amara also recognizes that many people, both within and outside Nigeria, still cannot fully grasp the issue. That’s why she’s hopeful virtual reality will provide a “way to breach that empathy gap, and to bring people back to the Niger Delta to live through the experience.”
To Okoro Kachi, a filmmaker and campaigner based in the Delta and the fixer for the documentary, virtual reality was also a key factor in the importance of the documentary:
“The story of oil spills and its continued impacts on the people living within its sphere for production has been told over and over again, however never in this form.
Its immersive features provide the needed feel to people who have never seen or experienced an oil spill to better understand its impacts, on the environment and livelihood of community people who are mainly dependent on fishing and farming for sustenance.”
By being enriched by the perspectives of several Nigerians, Oil In Our Creeks takes an intimate, nuanced look into how the struggle of the Niger Delta is not only long-standing and all-encompassing, but also an originator of resilience and hope.
