Damilola Mike-Bamiloye, the Woke Dramatist

     

                                             

                 

You’ll agree with me that not until few years ago, the early days of EVOM Films and Mount Zion Films in (Christian-- as we love to call it) movie making witnessed crude, if you let me, methods and extreme churchy themes as portrayed in "Agbaranla", "Perilous Times", "Egun Aimo" and others without too much societal relevance. But thanks to the Almighty who has raised a number of new hands like the new generation of the Bamiloyes, Oreofe Williams and The Chosen Vessels Dance Drama Ministry whose first flick, "Oruko Nla" (O ti gan pa), changed the game and upped it with subsequent comic flicks embroiling churchy themes like we see in "Take Heed", "Oro Odi", "Pride", "Little Jimmy", etc.

Damilola Mike-Bamiloye is the foremost of the new generation of the Bamiloyes in movie making. Of a truth, the evolvement and ascendancy of modernity and spirituality are always reflected in his panache. We feel the exuberance. We feel the coziness. We see the impression in our reality.

Like the direct opposite of this proverbial saying: "Ise ti Taye ba se, bi Kehinde ba danwo o le ru gi oyin", Damilola chose to follow in his father's steps. Not because he wanted to but because he had been chosen (by God) for the job. How, right? When life starts unfolding for an individual, there are always connections to past events and pointers to future happenings. In his own case, he had the vision or was led in SS1 to start a school drama group at Oritamefa Baptist Model School. An exact thing his father did in his higher learning days. Shortly after, he wrote his first movie, "Youthful Lust" at 15. In the university (Bowen), he wrote and produced "Fiwajomi" and then "Abobaku" in 2012.

After his university education, God told him to join his father to run the ministry. If I am not mistaken, that's when MZFM started churning out lots of youth-centred movies that address the realities of the present even in the Christendom. Since he works full-time in the ministry, he has produced and acted in many more feature and short movies like, ''She Dey Look Me", "Ignition", "Abejoye", "Wedding Weekend", "30 Pieces", "Land of Fury", and many more. A mentor will say, "God no dey owe ROI." This really was his story when he met his wife and married her in 2018. Today, movie production isn't just the tool with which he keeps spreading the gospel, it has also taken him round the world.