A Virtual Reality (VR) documentary movie, ‘Daughters of Chibok’ has won a prestigious award at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.
The Chibok Girls based short film by Joel Kachi Benson which was premiered at the Festival won best virtual reality story on Saturday, September 7, 2019.
‘Daughters of Chibok’ which tells the story of the kidnap of 275 female students in April 2014 from school dormitory in Chibok, Northeast Nigeria.
The 11-minutes VR film which represented Nigeria and Africa in the category competed with other VR movies from France, China, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, USA, Italy, Taiwan, and Israel.
The first ever VR documentary on Chibok girls shows a woman who tries to survive the pain, the shock and the emotional torture of the of the kidnap of her daughter.
Accepting the Award during the event, the Director of the movie, Kachi Benson, said:
“With this VR film, all I wanted to do was to take the world to the women of Chibok, who five years after their daughters had been kidnapped, are still living with the incredible pain of their absence. I felt it was wrong for us to forget or even doubt and move on.”
“When my name was announced as the winner and I walked up on stage, it was the most surreal thing ever! Almost like an out of body experience. But I knew this was an opportunity to remind the world that Chibok is still here and the story doesn’t have an ending yet. And so we must not forget.”
The owner of virtual reality film studios in Lagos, VR360, took to his Instagram page to express his joy over the award.
“I still can’t believe this. It’s like a dream….our VR film #daughtersofchibok won a Lion Award in the VR category of the Venice biennale!!!!! Somebody tell me it’s a dream!!!!”