Synopsis

Deadline's narrative is a fictional amalgamation of local folklore, Nollywood film references and actual histories taken from a small fishing town in The Gambia that Olde Wolbers visited. Here she met both a man whose two wives each gave birth to a son on the same day and a taxi driver who drove from Gambia to Nigeria to receive a plane ticket that his brother had sent from Greece. He was on the road for nearly two years without ever reaching his destination.

Salingding, a fictional young Gambian woman, narrates the film. In 1960 her grandfather's two wives give birth to two boys in adjacent rooms on the same day. They are described as twins who had the luxury of having grown in their mothers alone. Both women call their sons Lamin, the first-born. Their fates are sealed by a mere guess as chance intervenes to determine who is the elder, a decision that subsequently sets their lives of unequal status on course. While the older brother, joins the army, works in a hotel and eventually leaves for Greece, the younger brother, her father, reluctantly stays at home fishing. One day he decides to join his brother in Europe and drives his bush-taxi from Gambia to Nigeria to catch a flight to Greece.

Images of coiling patterned snakes, a rotund glass rabbit and an interior with transparent beads alternate with structures referencing African Modernist architecture.

The soundtrack consists of various samples and music by Daniel Pemberton.

Deadline is accompanied by a photo archive. A collection of snapshots taken by the artist and her co-travellers in The Gambia and Benin.