AKWAEKE

BREAK FRUIT | 10:48 | Brooklyn, USA | 2015

In a city with unbreathable air, a young woman pays a farewell visit to her older lover, a widower who became agoraphobic after his wife’s death. Both immigrants, they argue over her impending return to Nigeria from their place in diaspora, charting an emotional path together through fear, loss, and a thirst for freedom, all marked by an underlying secret. It’s a story of exile, homecoming, what gets left behind, and the truths that change everything.

‘Break Fruit’ was dubbed over in Igbo, partly as a nod to the dubbed movies that were an integral part of my childhood in Nigeria, but also a ritualistic exercise of engaging with the lost fluency of my language.