Joy Onuorah

A romance-comedy film title Cake, starring veteran actress, Patience Ozokwo, and ex-BBNaija star, Tsakute Jonah better known as Saskay is set to premiere on February 25.

A press junket in Victoria Island, Lagos united the cast and crew of the Nollywood film with the executives on the project.

‘Cake’ stars Ozokwo, Koloman, Saskay, Philip Asaya, Sophie Alakija, Folu Storms, and Tope Tedela.

The film follows the story of a young baker who discovered he is in need of a wife and wants to find one.

His late mother had told him his new bakeshop would help him find love. As he is to open the business, he meets a woman he falls head over heels for but doesn’t realise that his assistant, played by Storms, is in love with him.

As he goes to declare his love for her, it turns out she is engaged. The lead then goes on a mission to win her over with his cake-baking abilities in a storyline that encompasses such themes as love, drama, and comedy.

Dotun Olakunrin, the executive producer of ‘Cake’, said the movie project is part of a larger body of 12 films.

“We trained 12 directors with potential. We spent a year and a half developing 12 films. ‘Cake’ is a one,” he said.

Steve Gukas, the filmmaker, said the idea behind the project was to eliminate flaws in Nigeria’s filmmaking process.

“‘Cake’ is directed by Prosper Ejesiri who is one of the 12 directors we brought together as part of a process to deepen the talent pool in the industry. It was also part of our desire to create a pool of directors,” he said.

“We want to change the narrative where directors feel they’re superhuman and can just show up on set and make the magic happen. To get it right, you have to plan rigorously and work on your process to realise the ambition.

“We spent the last year and a half going through this process and pulled the directors more into the writing process to make sure they work with the writers, ensuring they both undergo rigorous training to arrive at what we have.

“The cast can testify to the script quality. It’s amazing to see how far we have come from where we sharted.”

Tongryang Pantu, the producer, recounted the hurdles the cast and crew had to surmount during the shoot.

“This began almost two years ago. With ‘Cake’ in terms of production, it started five months ago when we locked down the script which went through five drafts, four official ones and the fifth which is the shooting draft,” she said.

“We started casting and called a number of people because we were really particular about cast chemistry. It’s a romantic film and you want people to connect. One of the biggest challenges we had was that our lead is a baker.

“He inherited money to set up his business. We were looking for a unique place in terms of design. We got one or two places but they wouldn’t allow filmmaking because that’s where most of our scenes would happen.

“We needed it for a number of days and they had to do business. We had to create our own location. That took time and incurred its own cost. It encroached into our schedule. We’re thankful because our cast was understanding.”