Berlin Film Festival: ‘Crocodile’ Documents How Self-Taught Filmmakers From Nigerian Hinterlands Became Astonishing Creative Force

The Berlin Film Festival is welcoming some of the world’s most gifted moviemakers – none more talented than the young Nigerian collective known as The Critics. The group, made up primarily of siblings and some of their cousins, has managed to develop an international following with their short films despite a lack of formal training or much in the way of economic advantages.

Their work, astonishing for its freshness and command of cinema language, has attracted the notice of Hollywood, including Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, and producer-director J.J. Abrams who sent The Critics cameras, gratis, so they could evolve from shooting on cell phones to more elaborate equipment.

The story of how The Critics emerged and the challenges they have faced remaining as a cohesive group is told in the documentary Crocodile, directed by Pietra Brettkelly and The Critics. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday and screens again tonight, with additional screenings on Feb. 20 and 22.

Brettkelly, a New Zealand-based filmmaker, first became aware of the young filmmakers before the pandemic.

“[They’ve got] wild imaginations, but very, very few resources and what they come up with, I think is astounding,” Brettkelly says. “I think that’s so exciting for our industry that stories like theirs and filmmakers like them will get to challenge how we all tell stories really, how we all make films.”

Raymond, Richard, and Ronald Yusuff and Godwin and Victor Josiah are among the founding members of the collective. They’re self-taught – learning cinematic techniques by studying YouTube videos and Wikipedia entries. And they operate far from the Nollywood capital of Lagos, in the city of Kaduna (nicknamed “Crocodile City,” hence the documentary’s title) in the northern part of Nigeria. They contend with obstacles foreign to filmmakers in the U.S.

“They hardly have electricity,” Brettkelly notes. “Imagine if we were all on film sets and electricity was our biggest problem.”

Some of the obstacles they face are material. Others are cultural. “A life in art is alien to our people,” one of the members of The Critics observes. Carving out an identity as artists and filmmakers also puts them at odds with the parents of some members of the collective.

“Their parents want them to be doctors, lawyers, that was it… What concerns them is financial stability,” Brettkelly observes. “They kept it silent. For years they didn’t tell their parents. They were sneaking off and meeting under trees and making films. Even during Covid, they sneaked off and met at a tree down the corner, and it was a long time before their parents kind of heard what they were up to. And even now, the dad and the mum — I went back there the year before last to see them all and they’re like, ‘We don’t understand it. We don’t know if there’s a future in it.’ And I was like, I’m not going to give them advice. But all I can say is what an amazing life I’ve had.”

Premiering a documentary at one of the world’s great festivals could change family perceptions. “Them going to Berlin is enormous,” Brettkelly affirms. “That is sort of legitimizing for their parents that, okay, this can be a career. This is significant.”

For a major stretch of production on the film, Brettkelly and The Critics had to collaborate remotely, as the pandemic prevented travel.

“We’d Zoom or WhatsApp or whatever every Monday night. And that went on for some time,” Brettkelly recalls. “I could see that I was getting this quite beautiful intimacy from their own footage. They largely shot it themselves. This is definitely authentic storytelling. They chose where to put the camera and what to shoot and what things to capture and everything. And consequently, I had hundreds of hours of footage. It is definitely their point of view and their voice.”

There is an urgent, even frenetic tone to much of The Critics’ narrative/fictional work. Brettkelly wanted to maintain that energy for the documentary.

“I kind of early on decided to consider this word ‘restlessness.’ And that was how I leaned into the footage,” Brettkelly explains. “It had restlessness that was sort of reflective of their lives and them growing up and what they wanted and that they were pushing against whatever isolations they may have — financial, cultural, geographic, creative — and they were restless for a bigger creative life, not necessarily outside of their town, but to have connection and make stories beyond.”

Crocodile documents growing pains within the collective, particularly as Godwin becomes interested in pursuing a music career, diverting his attention from filmmaking (he has been signed to Sony Music).

“It’s been a freaking tough film for me to make. It’s been so tough [because of] the distance, but also to try and work out what the key story is and how do I represent the interiors of their minds, their film work. But it really works, the core relationship between Raymond and Godwin and where that friendship goes. I mean, it was something that Jane Campion actually said to me, ‘There’s very few films that cover young men’s friendships. We have a lot about young women’s friendships, but very few about young men’s friendship.’ I was like, God, she’s right. I mean, I’d just been editing, reacting to the footage, but that helped me.”

The Critics are at work on their debut feature narrative film. As greater renown and success come their way, they may face an additional challenge of retaining their identity and sense of place.

“Raymond says, ‘There will always be our own scenery, our own Africanness will come through,’” Brettkelly comments. “They’re still really young, so let’s hope that they do continue to hold firm. And even if they do end up traveling outside and working outside, that they still come back to those roots really and hold firm to the way they want to tell stories.”