Lost in music? Race, culture and identity in rage (Newton I. Aduaka, 2000)

It might well be argued that the cinematic career of Newton I. Aduaka has been a case study in how a filmmaker and at least certain of his films can become lost. Born in Eastern Nigeria in 1966 (in the troubled context of the Biafran War), he moved to the UK in 1985 and soon abandoned an electronic engineering degree to study film at the London International Film School, from which he graduated in 1990. His first big break in cinema came when he was hired to work as sound engineer on Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Quartier Mozart (Cameroon/France, 1992). In 1997, he set up his own production company, Granite FilmWorks, alongside Maria Elena L’Abbate, with a youthful zeal (which he has not lost in his mid-40s) to create personal, cutting-edge, uncompromising films. After a series of short films, he made his first feature Rage (UK, 2000), which was hailed as the first truly independent film by a black filmmaker to gain a national release in Britain.