You can feel Wingonia Ikpi’s eagerness and excitement as she talks about The Lost Days, you can tell her eyes light up the way a storyteller’s do when the tale is still alive in her bones. The film, at once intimate and endearing, unfolds across a series of striking locations: a house that holds transgenerational memories, an expansive forest, a quiet shoreline, each space humming with unspoken meaning.
For Ikpi, whose directorial debut premiered on Prime Video on July 11, 2025, as part of a First Features initiative, these are not mere settings but characters in their own right, shaping the story as much as the people who walk through them.
In our conversation, she unpacks the layers of symbolism hidden in these places and explains how the film’s geography became the emotional map for her characters’ journeys.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Spoiler Alert!
Let’s start with the reception to The Lost Days. How has it been so far?
Oh, well, the reception has been good. I’ll say a little better than I thought, because there haven’t been a lot of stories like this. First of all, it’s a little bit difficult to get attention with a drama in the current industry landscape. Secondly, because it’s also old love, a territory that we haven’t tested well enough in Nollywood. I was really looking forward to seeing what people felt. For some reason, the negatives that we have gotten is because people wish they got a romance story from start to end. Yeah. So it means that there’s something there, and at least we opened the doorway to those types of stories.
That was something I noticed, too. A lot of viewers seemed to wish it leaned fully into the romance.
That was a lot of the echoes from people. I wish I told that kind of story too. But all I got to do is uplift what was already in the script, not carve a new niche for it.
Let’s talk about the most prevalent location in the film. Something I found striking was the use of nature as a kind of safe space. For example, the waterside location appeared in a number of emotionally charged scenes, healing, connection, reflection, and sometimes even across generations. Was there something that inspired you to anchor those scenes there? Because I remember feeling so calm: the birds tweeting, the fishermen rowing early in the morning.
I’d say it’s all because of the space that we are shooting in. When I realised that we were going to be shooting Abeokuta, one of the things we set out to do was portray Abeokuta as a character. Because when you portray a space as a character, what you’re able to do is have different emotions based on that. So when we wanted to have calm, reflective, connection-type conversations, we went to the calm environment you’ve talked about. I have to give shout-outs to Abeokuta for that bird tweeting. I was hoping to see it, and then for some reason it happened. It was so interesting, we were filming and I just went, “Oh my god, double check if he was rolling.” And it was so funny.
So yes, the location supported the vision. You would also notice that for locations where we had like the intensity of the drama, which is, the kidnapping and all of that, you notice that the locations were very overwhelming.
The forest
Yeah, the forest was very overwhelming. And which is why a lot of times we made use of very wide shots, just so you could see what the stress looks like and feel some type of way, as opposed to the calm nature of the river or the beauty and the intimacy of the mountain. So yeah, location was used as a character. So we tried to walk around this character, or use this location as a character, and treat it in different phases
I know we spoke about nature, but even down to the specific nature, and their colours. For instance, the colour of the house wasn’t the colour we met. We specifically chose the colours of the rooms. Kola’s room is green, which ties it to the outer colour of the house. The inner colour of the house is brown, which ties in more closely with the background colour. And then we also have the mother’s room that is painted grey. So, everything in that room feels like colour has been drained, until Chisom came back in. So things like that were very intentional, because we knew our strengths, location was going to be one of them.
At the beginning of the film when Baba Kola shows Chisom around, there’s a line when she is by the water, and she goes, “Why can’t all of life be like this?” Was that moment meant to contrast the chaos of the outside world with the serenity of nature? Or was there a deeper longing being voiced, especially considering everything she had been through, losing her husband, fighting cancer, and reconnecting with her son?
Yes, it was very intentional, especially for Chisom’s character. There’s a frame in the film that a lot of people miss: when she returns from the hospital, there’s a family photo where her husband and daughter are smiling, but Chisom looks uncomfortable.
That picture tells a lot.
Before we meet this softer Chisom, she was a boss woman in Lagos, stern, successful, and in control. Cancer changed her. She realised she couldn’t control everything and needed to soften, especially in her relationships. Her life has been full of chaos: loss, illness, and building an empire. Coming to a slower, quieter place like Abeokuta isn’t just about peace; it’s about finding peace of mind after everything she’s been through. The place feels like home, even if it isn’t. I grew up in a small town myself, so I wanted to reflect that lifestyle, the contrast between Lagos and Abeokuta. Even when we filmed in Abeokuta, there was a calmness that shaped the atmosphere. That scene by the water was really the soul of the film. Chisom wasn’t just reflecting, she was seeking reconnection, empathy, and healing.
Speaking more about nature, there’s a scene where Baba Kola talks about how nature has kept her beauty, and he immediately connects that to Chisom, saying her beauty is just as timeless. It felt very poetic. How did you approach the idea of ageing and timelessness through memory and space?
Well, the first protagonist is a woman in her 60s. Kola is a man in his late 60s. I’ll first talk about how challenging it was even to access Olumo Rock, not just in getting permission to shoot there, but physically climbing it. It was so stressful on the actors that we almost cancelled shooting there. I’m not joking. It’s a very difficult climb. We were supposed to have two scenes at Olumo Rock, but because of how hard it was, we only shot one. And even that one took a lot of conversations.
What helped convince us to still go was this idea of timelessness. That dialogue, that scene, it was what I used to convince the team. In the story’s backstory, they first met at Olumo Rock. It’s not far-fetched; they both lived in Abeokuta. So returning to that same place after all these years, it’s powerful. Even if some people don’t realise it, that moment speaks volumes. It shows how old they are, how much they still love each other. Their feelings are still pure. And they’re standing on this rock that has stood the test of time: it’s faced wars, leaders, challenges, and it’s still standing. It’s a direct comparison to their story. They’ve faced cancer, kept a secret from their son for 30 years, and they’ve come back to the same place where they first fell in love, and they still feel the same. What could be stronger than that? So, yes, it was very intentional, how we showed the connection between characters, locations, and the overall story.
I noticed a pattern of shared spaces and repeated history, like Moses taking Kim to the same waterside where Kola took Chisom. It felt like an emotional inheritance of grief, love, and even tradition. Was that deliberate?
I think by now you’d know that even down to colour, like not wearing a particular colour, was intentional. You’ll notice Chisom never wears yellow again. So yes, colours and what they mean in spaces were all intentional. Of course, with production, sometimes you don’t get the right sheet or item, but the meaning behind the choices was there. That particular scene was also very important.
Now, to something that got some pushback, Nkem. Some people felt we shouldn’t have gone in the direction of it feeling like incest. But look, when we first meet Nkem, she’s a support system for her mother, and she’s incredibly vulnerable. Her marriage even breaks down partly because of her mother’s illness. Moses is manipulative. He sees that vulnerability and takes advantage. He likely didn’t plan to go that far, but he would have if he hadn’t found out they were related. We also made them both left-handed to hint at a connection. The film’s intimacy, those looks, touches, and close shots, was very intentional. I wanted Nkem to feel like someone who, despite coming off strong, is deeply vulnerable. Any small act of kindness feels big to her. Moses knows that and uses it. He takes her to a space tied to her mother, calm, sentimental, safe, to get her to open up. That’s manipulative behaviour.
We also wanted to pass intimacy across generations. The men in the Baba Kola family, Baba Kola, Moses, and Kola, are all very romantic. So we mirrored behaviours in subtle ways. That location where Moses takes Nkem is the same spot Baba Kola brought Chisom. It’s calming. It misleads you into thinking something pure is happening, because at that point, you don’t yet know who Moses really is.
Another example of shared spaces & repeating history is the room. The same one Kola’s late wife hid Chisom in, and the same one Chisom stays in later. When she enters, she looks around like she’s been there before. That room holds memories.
That room shows how locations were also characters with specific symbolism. People think Kola didn’t want his father to have a babe, but that’s not true. His real issue was that she stayed in his mother’s room. If she had left that room earlier, we might not have had a film. It was a very symbolic space. It’s where Chisom hid when she was pregnant and where Ronke was kept when she was ill. The room was painted grey to show there’s no life. The only life you saw was a mirror, a rosary, her photos, and her orange box. It was always kept clean.
When Baba Kola enters with a blanket and she (Chisom) leaves to put a drink in the fridge, we leave the door open. That showed there is someone new now. He will never have the closure he had with his wife.
There was also a picture of Moses and Kola as babies, and the butterfly necklace was hung on that frame. That’s the frame Kola picks it from. Everyone misses her. She is the only one who really understood Kola. Baba Kola didn’t know how to manage his emotions. That’s why the room matters. The house was painted green. For us, green meant grief, greed, and darkness. Kola’s room was green. He had not let go of the sadness. Baba Kola too. Then Chisom walks right into the space holding all those memories.
Moving on to the darker parts of the story, I picked up on the red dress Chisom wore before her kidnapping. It felt symbolic, especially culturally, where red can signify danger. Were you pulling from folklore or local symbolism? Why red?
Oh, that’s a very interesting question, and I’m excited to answer it. For me, red is such a strong colour, it’s symbolic. I was very intentional about not using it too often. I can use any colour as a director, but I wouldn’t just throw red in anywhere. In this film, because the characters grow and their motivations change, we had to balance what colours mean with what audiences associate them with. The first time you see her in red, she’s wearing a red dress, coming out of her room to speak to her daughter. There’s also this little detail: she holds her hands in a Cinderella-like way while on the phone. Then she goes outside, and all these interactions happen that deepen the connection between her and Baba Kola. You also notice he’s wearing blue with a touch of red. That moment is about love, mutual affection, and it’s the height of their connection in the film.
The next time she’s in red is when she’s kidnapped. So it shifts from love to danger. Her dress gets stained, which for me is symbolic, like Cinderella losing her shoe, but here, the “loss” marks her as a damsel in distress. That stain also foreshadows two possible outcomes: she could be caught or she could survive. Red here works both ways; it’s about beauty and danger.
Even the cloth used to cover her face has touches of red, just to underline how much danger she and her sister are in at that point.
Why was Abeokuta specifically chosen to tell this story?
Well, I think it was specifically to tell the story because of the small-town life that it represents. And you would say, ‘Oh, well, it’s not only Abeokuta that has a small-town vibe, but Abeokuta’s small-town vibe is different from Ibadan’s small-town vibe.’ I think if I went to Ibadan to shoot this film, I might shoot a little bit differently, just so I can fit into the character. The colours were also very important to me, because if you get to our film, the two major colours you would find are green and orange, right? When we get to Abeokuta, the first thing you probably will see, if you are doing drone shots, is an orange hue, right? Then you go further down to the forest and you see a green. So, and yes, we shot on location. This is interesting, it means that we did such a good job, because nobody noticed that the house we shot in, the interior of the house, was actually shot at a studio in Ikeja, and then the exteriors were shot in Abeokuta.
What stopped you from shooting in Abeokuta since you were already there for some scenes? Were there constraints that led to shooting in a Lagos studio?
The constraint was never Abeokuta itself, the spirit of that place is undeniable. It was specifically the architecture of the interior of Baba Kola’s house. The exterior was perfect; It told everything you needed to know about Baba Kola’s history, his roots, personality and it felt familiar to my own history.
However, the interior spaces were not suitable with our visual language. They were limiting for camera, production design and the general artistic and emotional atmosphere we needed to create. Rather than settle for a compromise that would dilute the film’s power, we made a deliberate choice to move to a studio. This allowed us to construct an interior that wasn’t just a set, but a controlled environment. The studio had its own limitations on angles. The decision came down to choosing which set of challenges were the most manageable for the vision.
What was your work with the production design department like to bring the interior to life in the Lagos studio?
It was an immensely detailed and collaborative process. Our paramount objective the moment we decided on the studio was seamless integration. The question for all of us was: “How do we ensure the audience feels absolutely no discontinuity between the exterior shot on location and the interior we build?”
Bola Bello, our exceptional production designer, and his entire team were instrumental in achieving this. We engaged in deep conversations that covered everything from ensuring architectural references and structural proportions were perfectly mirrored, down to the most micro-level details.
We had various conversations on colour palettes to help in transplanting the soul of that place into the studio, ensuring every element, every texture, felt authentically lived-in and aligned with the world we built.
Finally, you mentioned Lost in Translation, Fences, Seven Samurai, Amélie, Hitchcock’s Psycho, and a few others as references. These films have distinct tones, structures, and visual styles. How did each of them, in their own way, influence The Lost Days? Were there specific elements from each film that you aimed to incorporate?
When I set out to make The Lost Days, I approached my inspirations in two parts. The first half focused on intimacy: love, connection, brotherhood, and family ties. I wanted to capture ways of portraying closeness and emotional bonds on screen. The second half dealt with the grittier side, the darkness within the story, and how to show that in a way that still fits the film’s overall tone. I was careful not to fall into clichés. For example, I didn’t want the depiction of thugs to feel stereotypical to a Lagos setting, especially since we were filming in Abeokuta.
For the “soft” half of the film, I drew from works like Fences, which explores an estranged father-son relationship with deep emotional resonance, and Really Love, which is unhurried and assured in its pacing, portraying intimacy with honesty. There’s also a bit of the Cinderella element in the way I portray a distressed woman’s movement and presence on screen. For the darker, grittier half, my inspirations included Inglourious Basterds and Seven Samurai. For instance, the barefoot hunting scene in The Lost Days, with the character carrying guns, was influenced by a moment in Seven Samurai when the warriors set out for battle after finding their leader. These films also inspired certain shot choices, like low-angle framing reminiscent of Brad Pitt’s character marking his enemies in Inglourious Basterds.
That said, I’m never just copying shots. I’m more interested in recreating the feeling a scene gives me rather than its exact framing, though sometimes the two overlap. It’s about translating the emotional energy of those films into my own story.
The Lost Days stars Bimbo Manuel, Ifeoma Fafunwa, Baaj Adebule, Okutagidi Durotimi, Onuoha Aderonke, Cynthia Clarke. Written by Paul Rowlston and Abdul Tijani-Ahmed, the drama premiered July 11 on Prime Video.
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