Milestone film reissues 1960s Nigerian movie ‘Bushman’

The US-based film distribution companies Kino Lorber and Milestone Film and Video have released the trailer of their 4K restoration of the 1971 film Bushman, centred around a Nigerian immigrant, Paul Okpokam in the US in the 1960s.

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In the short clip released on Twitter, Paul Okpokam is seen exploring the city of San Fransico in the United States as a Nigerian immigrant, who battles racism and various love affairs.
Expressing the challenges of trying to leave, Okpokam is stuck because of the unrest in the US following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, and then the Biafra Civil War which was taking its course back home in Nigeria.

“A cop stopped me. I told him I was an African chief, and he became very friendly and let me go.” 😄 Funny, but not really. Layers in that sentence… race, identity, perception in an American context. Pair this with “Last Black Man in San Francisco” for your screening series 🤔 https://t.co/usIgY0KRZL

— Tambay Obenson (@TambayObenson) January 11, 2024

The trailer makes it clear that Bushman is an emotional journey. The writer, Tom Shales describes the film, which is shot in black and white in the Washington Post as, “perceptive and compassionate.” And Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it “a remarkably sensitive study of a man caught between cultures.”
This new 4k restoration will premiere in the US at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on February 2nd, 2024 after a screening debut next week on January 15th, 2023 at The Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) film preservation festival.

The University of California Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, carried out the restoration of the initial work by David Schickele in 1971.
According to Milestone, the African premiere of the restoration was at the 2023 Bayelsa International Film Festival in Nigeria.

Pulse/O.O