Filmmaker Walé Oyéjidé's new film is an ode to West Philly

It’s been four years since West Philly filmmaker Walé Oyéjidé premiered a film at the BlackStar Film Festival. His 2020 debut, After Migration: Calabria, premiered in a virtual festival with audiences watching on their home screens.

Since that virtual showcase, Oyéjidé has been hard at work. His debut feature film, Bravo, Burkina!, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and now, he is back with Do You See Me, a short film that tackles familiar notes of grief and tradition for the Nigerian-born filmmaker and clothing designer. With this film premiering Saturday at BlackStar, he gets to fully bask in the in-person cinematic magic that the festival has long cultivated.

“Exposure is everything. Access is everything. The more we see ourselves do something in this space, the more we have the germination to think, ‘OK, I can do that.’ And I think that’s 100% why I have achieved what I’ve managed to achieve so far. It’s because I’ve had access to [BlackStar] and have seen people like myself do these wonderful things,” Oyéjidé said.

Do You See Me, which screens at PAFA’s John and Richanda Rhoden Arts Center, is centered on a real-life mother, son, and uncle, played by Ade Jaiye, Seth Jaiye, and Akin Jaiye, as they grapple with the death of a family member. It’s a tale brought to life by Wren Rene’s masterful cinematography and Oyéjidé's direction.

While all of his other films have been shot in Italy, Oyéjidé placed this project in his hometown. A West Philly laundromat serves as the backdrop and illuminates the heart of the soul-stirring project. But it didn’t come without artistic challenges.

“Doing [the film] in a small laundromat on Baltimore Avenue is a very tiny and close thing. And the question for me as an artist is when you remove all the trappings, and the more limitations you think you have, then you have to find out what you really got,” Oyéjidé said. “It was an artistic challenge to go far and wide, I went deep. Whether it was successful or not is up to the viewer.”

For Oyéjidé, Philadelphia was the perfect setting for a son dealing with his mother’s death and how her presence lingers on. The film looks at redefining tropes of Black masculinity, as Akin Jaiye’s character takes on the responsibility of caregiving while experiencing a deep sense of grief.

Oyéjidé is hopeful that Do You See Me inspires people to further examine Philly’s grit.

“Philly is a town with a great artistic nucleus and community, and yet there’s this narrative that artists oftentimes feel they don’t get nurtured until they find love on the outside,” he said. He wants to change that.

He is hopeful the stoic and impassioned characters he conjures up on the screen are loved by local and international audiences.

With his films, Oyéjidé wants to ignite someone else’s hunger for filmmaking. So they know that they, too, have a chance to showcase their work at a platform like BlackStar. “I imagine somebody will watch this film, and not because I’m amazing, but because it will potentially spark something within them,” he said. “And then they can go way beyond me.”

While the “what’s next” element of filmmaking can be demanding at times, Oyéjidé said he’s in a phase of “fervent passion” for creativity.

That he considers his eye for striking visuals as one of his biggest strengths as a storyteller doesn’t come as a surprise to those who have followed his bespoke designs and photography. Future projects include a trilogy of films centered on migration, but Oyéjidé has submitted to his life’s pattern of unpredictability. He was a musician and a lawyer before becoming a filmmaker, so there’s no telling where life may take him.

“The more you mature, the more you realize that the world is really your oyster, and to not be too trapped into any particular set ways of being because you’re just limiting yourself,” he said. “Maybe I’m going to make bread or start crocheting. But whatever I’m doing, I’m going to connect with people and make people feel beautiful through that expression. I think that’s the core of the work I do.”

For now, he is happy being a mural artist. He has designed a mural called The Mother in honor of the characters in the film, that stands in southwest Philly’s Africa Town. For him, the image of actors Ade Jaiye and Seth Jaiye looking at each other with love is representative of the power of tradition and a self-realized sense of culture — an element, he believes, that’s imbued in Philly.

“[Residents] have no idea who these people are, or if they are even real people. But they see themselves in the work, and that’s the kind of higher compliment you receive as an artist,” he said. “For someone to be like, ‘Yo, that’s me.’ And for that to be an actual real mother and child up there, it’s a moment that captures the one thing that Philly offers. Despite whatever we may not have, we recognize the importance of carrying on tradition and culture in a way that better-resourced environments don’t.”

“Do You See Me.” 3 p.m., Aug. 3, John and Richanda Rhoden Arts Center at PAFA. It plays virtually on the festival platform for 48 hours starting 10 p.m., Aug. 3.