{"id":239626,"date":"2026-01-18T12:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T12:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/239626\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T12:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T12:58:09","slug":"pasa-faho-to-screen-at-sydney-opera-house-after-creating-a-bit-of-buzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/239626\/","title":{"rendered":"Pasa Faho to screen at Sydney Opera House after creating a bit of buzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Igbo Australian filmmaker Kalu Oji witnessed the audience watching his film Pasa Faho at a screening in Lagos, Nigeria, he noticed they did so in a quintessentially Nigerian way.<\/p>\n

“It’s not like the other festival screenings we’ve experienced where people will sit quite poised and quiet and dissect and analyse and go outside and maybe have a quiet conversation over a wine after the film is wrapped and after they’ve had time to process it,” Oji told ABC News.<\/p>\n

“It’s as the film is playing live on screen, people are reacting in real time, like, ‘Why did he do that?!'”<\/p>\n

Oji said that level of engagement was beautiful to see, as were reactions to the film’s star, stand-up comedian and award-winning Nollywood actor Okey Bakassi, in a different kind of role.<\/p>\n

“He’s such an icon in Nigerian cinema,” Oji said.<\/p>\n

Pasa Faho is set in Melbourne and follows Azubuike (Bakassi), a struggling shoe salesman who gets news that his shop will be sold to developers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, his 12-year-old son Obinna (Tyson Palmer) moves across the country to live with him. The estranged pair struggles to find stability at a turbulent time.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The story follows struggling shoe salesman Azubuike (Okey Bakassi). (Supplied: Ten Days)<\/p>\n

Azubuike has a deeply embedded sense of pride but is forced to let go of some of his ideals in order to connect with his son.<\/p>\n

“That’s a very, very difficult thing for anyone to do, and then particularly an Igbo man who’s so proud, and he’s got so much pressure riding on him as well,” Oji said.<\/p>\n

“He’s spent his whole life building up this image of what it means to be successful. There’s so much tension in that.”<\/p>\n

The film will screen at the Sydney Opera House in its New South Wales premiere on January 21, followed by a national tour of special event screenings around Australia.<\/p>\n

This follows its sold-out world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival last year, and screenings around Australia and internationally, where it has been warmly received.<\/p>\n

What does Pasa Faho mean?<\/p>\n

Oji said the term Pasa Faho was a play on words, meaning “parts of a whole”.<\/p>\n

“It’s a made-up thing,” Oji said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a concept which doesn’t have previous meaning.<\/p>\n

“This meaning is projected onto it through the material and through the film.<\/p>\n

“Through that process, it’s come to encapsulate so many aspects of the film’s themes, and the film’s characters, and the film’s world.”<\/p>\n

\"Kalu<\/p>\n

Pasa Faho is the debut feature film from Kalu Oji. (Supplied: Claire Guiffre)<\/p>\n

He said the film had travelled and connected with audiences who brought their own meaning to it.<\/p>\n

“It just feels to me like this idea that just keeps on having layers or parts, I guess, added onto it,” he said.<\/p>\n

Suburban Melbourne a character<\/p>\n

The film’s setting is a crucial part of its tapestry.<\/p>\n

“In 10 years, 20 years, people will be able to look at this film as like a little window back to a time,” Oji said.<\/p>\n

He said the beauty of suburban Melbourne was on full display.<\/p>\n

“You have this Greek florist, and you have this Nigerian shoe salesman, and on paper, there’s not really directly anything that kind of matches them, but in their experiences, and in the ways they feel, there’s so many overlaps.”<\/p>\n

The Sydney Opera House screening of Pasa Faho takes place on January 21 and will be followed by a Q&A with Oji and producers of the film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Igbo Australian filmmaker Kalu Oji witnessed the audience watching his film Pasa Faho at a screening in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[141161,430,156,141158,141159,111,139,69,141157,141160],"class_list":["post-239626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-african-australian","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-kalu-oji","tag-kalu-oji-interview","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pasa-faho","tag-pasa-faho-sydney-opera-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}