Months after the release of the movie Oloture which premiered on the 31st of October 2019 at the Carthage Film festival in Tunisia and later aired on Netflix on the 2nd of October 2020, a fresh news on the investigative journalist involved has surfaced.
Recall that days after its release, Oloture became part of the top 10 most watched movies in the world – all thanks to the background investigative journalist for a job well done.
However, there has been a sudden upsurge from Tobore Mit Ovuorie, the investigative journalist who in collaboration with premium times carried out the behind the scene task.
On Thursday, the 7th of January 2021, the multiple award-winning investigative journalist, Tobore was seen to have granted an interview on pulse TV where she talked about how the whole story came to be.
In what seems like an infringement of copyright, Tobore has cried out and proceeded to seek legal steps in this regard.
In her words: “Oloture is my life story …and then somebody now publishes your life story and makes it into a movie, lying it is their own idea, I can’t be silenced.”
she also mentioned that even when she had no money, she just had to find every means to get her medication, which according to her, she can’t sleep without taking them.
In the 8 minutes, 34 seconds video posted on pulse TV IG page, Tobore was seen crying amidst her narrative. She revealed how she’s been battling depression, anxiety and PTSD amongst several other mental health challenges as a result of her experience during the undercover for oloture movie.
According to Tobore, the human trafficking story was an investigation she did for premium times newspaper in order to report first-hand happenings on what goes down in the den of traffickers.
However, in her bid to convey this message to a wider audience, she decided to share the story with a film director Kenneth Gyang who in turn, related this idea to producer Mo Abudu but unfortunately, director and Mo retrieved this story and turned it into theirs, wanting to shut her down.
Tobore claims Oloture is an adaptation of her work plus her life story hence it turned into a case of ‘reporter became the story.’
Further, she spoke about how Ebony life as a company went against the terms and conditions of the letter forwarded to her by going behind her back to air the movie on Netflix without any theatrical runs. In this vein, no proceeds (5% profits form theatrical runs) were sent to her foundation as stated in the letter.
In turn, the executive producer of Ebony life, Mo Abudu has tagged Tobore’s claims as @unfounded allegations aimed at tarnishing the reputation of Ebony life and as such, issued a disclaimer via her IG handle stating that this case will not be pushed further.
Although, she is still undergoing therapy, Tobore feels she has been greatly violated and can’t stay silent for this grave copyright infringement.
Should the case happen to be exactly as Tobore as spoken, it would be a big blow on media personality and CEO of ebony life, Mo Abudu. And cases might be filed against her by using someone’s life story as a work of fiction as claimed.
Recall that most of the movies produced by Tobore are non-fiction, which depicts they are real stories made into a movie with permission from those it happened to. In same vein, if you ask, Oloture looks more like non-fiction than what Mo Abudu claims it to be.
A big question here is, should anyone’s life story be copy-pasted into a movie? If you were in Tobore’s shoes, how would you feel hearing millions of people watch your life story in a movie?
Being an investigative journalist that she is, with all of the hard and intense work put into this movie, how would you feel if you work is termed a mere ‘inspiration to’ and not being appreciated enough? How would you feel seeing another person taking all the credits for your hard work?
What do you say?