Praise Odigie Paige on Birdie, Sundance, and Making the Film You Want to See
Filmmaker Praise Odigie Paige is breaking barriers with her short film Birdie, now heading to the Sundance Film Festival. In this bonus episode of Sista Brunch, Praise opens up with host Fanshen Cox about her journey from pre-med to filmmaking, the quiet power of storytelling, and the risks and rewards of staying true to her vision. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about faith, representation, and making the work you believe in.
00:00 Welcome to Sista Brunch Season Seven Bonus Episode
00:45 Introducing Our Talented Guest: Praise Odigie Paige
02:00 Praise’s Journey to Filmmaking
06:30 The Turning Point: Choosing Film Over Pre-Med
08:00 About Birdie and Its Themes
11:00 The Biafran War and Its Emotional Core
14:00 Why Virginia Became the Setting
16:00 Writing Against Expectation: Quiet Storytelling
20:00 Financing the Film & Shooting on 35mm
22:00 Shooting in Rural Appalachia During Election Week
24:00 Let’s Talk Tech: Favorite Set Terminology
25:00 The Signature Sista Brunch Question: Advice to Younger Self
27:00 Closing Remarks & Credits
About the Guest
Praise Odigie Paige is a Nigerian-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her work centers on girls and women on the edge of quiet transformation. Her short film Birdie is screening at the Sundance Film Festival, and she is currently developing her debut feature, Igboland, an intimate period drama exploring faith, girlhood, and desire at the edge of war.
Transcript
[00:00:00]
Introduction
Fanshen: Welcome back to season seven of Sista Brunch. I mean, I'm calling it season seven, but in reality this is like a pre-launch special bonus VIP episode because we found a young woman who's going to Sundance this year, and we wanted to get this out.
In case any of you are going to Sundance, we want to encourage you to go see this beautiful short film. Go meet this filmmaker, lift her up, let her know how important this work is that she's doing, and that we are in community with her. So, uh, so that's why we're doing this quick little bonus episode. And our guest is Praise Odigie Paige Paige, I got it. The Praise and Paige, I know, but see, I have my nerve with the name Fanshen. So
Praise: Tongue twister.
Fanshen: And Praise is a Nigerian born filmmaker living in Brooklyn, New York and her work centers girls and women on the edge of quiet transformation.
She's currently, uh, developing her debut [00:01:00] feature, Igboland, which is a working title. It's an intimate period drama about faith, girlhood and desire at the edge of war, and we'll certainly see some connections between this feature and the film that's going to Sundance. The short is called Birdie. It's playing this year in the shorts program five, so it's showing on January 26th, 27th, 30th, and February 1st.
Check your programs. Be sure to see it. Welcome Praise.
Praise: Thank you for having me.
Fanshen: It's great to have you. It's great to have you and I can imagine you are getting ready to, to head out to Utah for the last last year that it is there in Park City. huge congratulations to you. So thank you. We love to start the, the episodes with asking you about your journey and, and you, you know, getting, getting to Sundance and getting to be here on Sista Brunch and, and, kind of all the things that you've done.
Praise's Journey to Filmmaking
Fanshen: Obviously immigration is a big part [00:02:00] of your story and the stories you tell. So go as far back as you'd like. It could be your great grandparents, or it could just be when you're born or later than that. And tell us a bit about your journey.
Praise: Oh man. Um, well I didn't think to go as far back as my great grandparent, but
Fanshen: You can., yeah.
Praise: I suppose I could start with my parents. My dad has always kind of had a dramatic flare and, um, I grew up with artists who didn't call themselves artists, but like are absolutely artists and definitely see the world in that way.
Fanshen: Mm-hmm.
Praise: I had always been just kind of a really introverted, like, curious kid, who devoured books and loved reading.
Um, would sort of just disappear in, in my own world, um, of like eternal childhood, boredom. And, um, the moments that I remember the most distinctly from my childhood are, are my mom, like reciting and telling us these like old [00:03:00] television shows she used to watch in her day and like, I think she watched like two episodes of it and like would make up the rest and she would just go on and on.
There was different seasons and things like that. So stories were just like always a part of our lives. I remember just like, you know, especially in Nigeria, like NEPA would take light and so there'd be a Blackout and we'd just be like outside my mom telling us stories. And then when we moved to the US I got this real kind of immigrant child like bug of like, I need to be a doctor.
So. I went to college with this mission to be a medical doctor and not shortly after, I just found myself trying to figure out how I could really make this doctor thing work. And I was like, maybe I'll be a, a medical writer and just trying to find ways that like my creative life could live in the midst of this decision that I had imposed, self-imposed on myself.
And, um, [00:04:00] I was really gonna see it through, I think, and then I took this film class, With Professor Terence Ross. I remember the first like, amazing day of class. He was like, you know, I'm famous for turning, pre-med majors into filmmakers. And I remember thinking like, who in their right mind, what kind of idiot would study film, would pay money to study film?
Fanshen: Wow.
Praise: And, um, by the end of that class, I was like, absolutely bamboozled by the form and my aunt had come from Nigeria, actually. She was visiting and she came to our, the film festival and she saw this little film that I made and we were all so proud of this little film. And I remember her, like we were on the way home and she just looked at me in the back of the car.
She was like, what are you studying? And I said, medicine. And she was like, why? And it was just this moment of like,
Fanshen: Yes!
Praise: No one has these expectations for [00:05:00] myself but me. And, um, she'd passed away six months later. And I remember the moment that I heard about her passing and I heard my mom in the room. I just like had this like truckload sense of like, your life can be taken away at any point, and if you don't spend every minute of your life like actually doing the thing that you're supposed to do and you love.
Fanshen: Yes.
Praise: Like life is life. Just the, the how precarious life was just became so clear to me and I switched my major and my dad was so supportive.
He went and like bought me my first camera on credit and then I really had to do film.
Yeah.
Fanshen: Pay that off eventually, because then eventually school, et cetera, costs a whole lot. Where was, um, so did your family, uh, immigrate to New York? Is that where you all were or did they go somewhere else and you ended up there for school?
Praise: Yeah. I mean, we first moved to Atlanta. That was our first stop.
Fanshen: Okay.
Praise: Actually, our first stop was New York [00:06:00] for a few months, then Atlanta for a couple of years.
Fanshen: Okay.
Praise: And then we came back to New York and spent the most time here.
Fanshen: Okay. And school. Where did you, where were you taking this, uh, class In, in, uh, you know, gonna be a doctor and then ended up in that one class.
And the teacher was Terrance Ross. Was it? Thank you. Terrance Ross. Thank you Terrance. We appreciate you changing the world over here.
Yes.
Praise: I'm sure many people have that story, to be honest, he was such an amazing, amazing force. Um, yeah. Adelphi University, um, in New York. It's a little, little suburban college in Long Island to New York.
Fanshen: Mm-hmm.
Praise: Yeah.
Fanshen: Alright. And so you, you end up on this path and I know you, you know, you've done another and I think you have a short that's also in post now. and you're developing this feature. So, and, you know, when we talk about some of the themes for this feature feature, it sounds a lot like what we see in Birdie.
Maybe [00:07:00] this is a kind of a proof of concept.
Praise: Mm-hmm.
Fanshen: Yeah. and I have so many questions about it, it's beautiful. I love a coming of age story. I always have also period pieces. I was born in the year that it takes place in 1970, so there was some nice nostalgia there. but, so these themes, um, especially I'd love to talk about faith and also about, um, war and it's really, you know, those things so frequently go hand in hand on one hand because sometimes people's faith lead them to start wars or to have an excuse to start wars. And then on the other hand, it is the thing that keeps us surviving in the midst of it, which we see with this beautiful family of, um, two sisters and a mom.
About Birdie
Fanshen: So, anywhere you want to take us, and also maybe just start by just, telling our, [00:08:00] our listeners and viewers about Birdie and then, why those themes.
Praise: Yeah. Birdie, follows a 16-year-old, Nigerian teenager. Her name is English, and, she's a refugee, uh, living with her mother and her sister, in rural Virginia in the aftermath of the Biafran War.
And, um, yeah, the film kind of just follows her on her emotional journey. As, um, she's trying to hold onto her sister who's being drawn or pulled away by this new, you know, arrival, another refugee. And, um, and just coming to terms with the, the, um, the reality of, and, and the fragility of her family and, and what's left of their lives here and back home.
Um, faith and war. Wow. That's such a, a, an interesting framing. I, I, I put the things in the film that I know intimately. Okay. I don't know war intimately, but like, faith has been [00:09:00] such a big part of my life and, um, I was, I was so curious about, you know, so much of the film is about displacement and like pressing into the private lives of these young women and how things like, um.
Desire and, um, selfhood and agency and shame, are shaped by these massive forces that are outside of their control. And I just remember my own coming of age experience being, you know, in this kind of devout setting. Where this question of morality became more than just about morality, it became sort of connected to the yes or no of my survival.
And so for this character English, I think that, you know, she sees that faith is a big part of her mother's life and it is their way of sort of ordering their lives against this larger uncertainty around them. But I think that she takes it very seriously as like this, if I am good, [00:10:00] then everything will be good.
And so, her coming of age experience is really realizing that, um, yeah, the outcome of their lives is not really based on how closely she follows the rules, but that these things are really, truly, um, outside of her control.
Fanshen: And she has this moment where she sees her sister Birdie, breaking the rules kind of right, and not knowing, when, when you are, are raised in this way, you believe that, even the afterlife is not like every moment of your life is now not going to go right because of this moment and. also the family is, is waiting to find out about the fate of, of their, their, the girls' father.
And Yeah. Um,
Praise: And I should add as well, like another big part of like why faith is such a big part of the story is because when you look at the, you know, the history of the Biafran war and you know, the presence, the Catholic presence.
The Biafran War
Fanshen: I would love to, will you tell us more [00:11:00] about the Biafran War actually? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Praise: It a civil, you know, it was, um, it was a really tragic thing that happened in Nigeria that's not very talked about.
Fanshen: Yeah,
Praise: Those grew up in the seventies like remember faintly, at least from here. Um, just hearing about the war and seeing those images of starving children.
But yeah, it was a period of like mass displacement. Um, I believe over around 2 million people lost, were killed in the war, and most of those people were children. Um, it's a pretty graphic part of Nigerian history that is not talked about as much. Um, and that's for a reason. and so, yeah, there, there were, there, there was a huge Catholic presence, um,
Fanshen: Okay.
Praise: In Nigeria. Um, generally and then, um, particularly from like a humanitarian perspective during the war. And, um, yeah, I was really fascinated by like Igbo Catholic culture, like [00:12:00] Igbos make up some of the most, um, of like the Catholic population in the world, which isn't something that many people know.
Fanshen: Yes.
Praise: Yeah. And so just like watching, um. There's a particular documentary called Night Flight to Uli, and um, there's this moment where you're just watching this procession happening and there's like, it's, it's, is it, is it the natural austerity of their expression of faith or is it like the sobriety of this really heavy period of time that's happening in their life?
I don't know. But they moved differently and that was really interesting to me and I wanted to explore that pace. In the film and see what it felt like to follow this family that lives under these sort of really like really tight set of like rituals and rules.
Fanshen: Mm-hmm.
Praise: And, uh, routines. and because it becomes really easy to see in that like the sort of slow cracking of like their longing and their relationships and, um, so it felt like the [00:13:00] perfect way to like really ground the environment, ground their lives.
Um, and getting to sort of see the more subtle emotional things that were happening internally for them.
Fanshen: Amazing. I, I have so many questions about your approach to the film. Um, uh, there's some kind of made big ones that are like, why Virginia? Like, I'm so curious, why Virginia? Of all the places, right.
and, just as you were talking about this experience of, you know, of, of Catholicism in Nigeria versus now they're here in the United. States, they're immigrants, they are with White nuns who are, and, just, there's a contrast there, right? Mm-hmm. Like they're all practicing the same religion, but it isn't the same.
And, and the fears and the concerns, and even some of those things that are built into religion, like potential shame and things are different.
Praise: [00:14:00] Mm-hmm.
Fanshen: So, um, so
Why Virginia?
Fanshen: I, noticed that. And just kind of wondered if the, if, there were any choices around Virginia and, um, I, yes.
Praise: Yeah. Well, the film was originally supposed to take place in Massachusetts, but we could not afford Massachusetts.
Fanshen: Okay. Okay.
Praise: However, there are, you know, what was so fascinating to me about this time in history, which is like rarely visually explored. Um, there are not many films about, um, Nigerian immigrants, during this time period.
Fanshen: Okay.
Praise: And there was a wave of immigration from Africa in general during that, this time period. but um, there were so many people who like either, you know, came here because of the war, or stayed because of the war and found themselves in these really like obscure places.
Fanshen: Yeah. Okay.
Praise: Big metro cities like New York or LA there are certainly like huge waves of immigrants there, but like Oklahoma and like the [00:15:00] Midwest and
Fanshen: Interesting,
Praise: You know, Minnesota. And I just thought that that was such the, the contrast there was so interesting to me. Like com, like arrive in this really unfamiliar place, deeply unfamiliar place.
Fanshen: Yes.
Praise: And as I was thinking about how do I show this experience of like a kind of cultural exile. I felt like I really wanted to root it in that type of environment versus in New York where it's easy to find your people.
Like what happens when you, when you move from Nigeria to Oklahoma, like what is that experience like? And those people exist. They existed. And so, um, I wanted to tap into that really unexplored part of Nigerian immigration history to the U.S.
Hi, this is Praise Odigie Paige, and you're watching Sista Brunch.
Writing a Quiet Coming-of-Age Story
Fanshen: I'm so curious when you started to write the film. I, what I love about it and [00:16:00] what I, I love when, when a coming of age film is done well is that it's quiet and the, the kind of plot points and catalysts are slow and, but also everything, right? It's like it is the, like we said, for English, it's the end of her world when she comes upon this moment.
Praise: Yeah.
Fanshen: And at the same time. To us, we're just watching these two people who are grooving on each other in a beautiful field. Right. Like this lovely, you know?
Praise: Yeah. Yeah.
Fanshen: And I'm curious about, I've always wondered when you're going to write something like that, and, and getting feedback on it. Are, were there people who were like, we need more things to happen, or, yeah.
And I'm just, how did you
Praise: Yeah, I was one of those people.
Fanshen: Okay.
Praise: You know, for me, I mean [00:17:00] ultimately where I got to was when you start writing a short film in this kind of economy and in the landscape where, you know, there isn't really a ton of support for filmmakers to take like creative risks.
Fanshen: Right.
Praise: And, um, and you're, you're, you're reminded constantly of like what the short form requires, which I respect
Fanshen: Right? Right. Yes.
Praise: To follow as many of those rules as I, as I, as it felt right to, it's hard to make something that feels really, really slow. And I also, one thing that was really surprising to me that I didn't expect as much was you know, even like the, in the process of auditioning, when I would give the script to actors and, you know, how they were, had sort of been conditioned to see these characters and watching the rehearsals, I was like, oh, that's not.
The character that I imagined at all.
Fanshen: Okay.
Praise: And, and, [00:18:00] and, and it made me realize that there's, while we are all sort of, we as Black women, we just really don't get to see ourselves in this group.
Fanshen: Yes. That's why we do this. Exactly.
Praise: We're not even,
Fanshen: And so then when we, even when we're performers, we put on something that
Praise: we put on something.
Fanshen: Yes.
Praise: You know, I have people like I'm Nigerian and I have people doing the script who are like putting on the Nigerian accent, and I was like, you don't have to do that, right? You're, you're Nigerian. I don't know. Like we're just
Fanshen: Right.
Praise: It's that way for Black women, but especially for African women. Like there are just not a lot of, blueprints of, and there are, and there are so many, but they're not the ones in sort of like popular main steam,
Fanshen: Right.
Praise: Culture, right. Um, or word, like the subtleties and of of, of who you are and your emotional journey gets room to just really be, and so ultimately it came down for me. when I realized that I was gonna be self-funding this, [00:19:00] that, um, I wanted to write the film that I wanted to watch and, and I wanted to make the film and, you know, I of course had a lot of doubts about the length of the film because to do that, it's, that's not a 10 minute journey like.
If you want to, if you want to really see them, like reach this moment of an arc, you need to give them space to breathe. And so there were so many risky decisions that did not make, uh, that were not feasible to, to make.
Fanshen: Mm-hmm.
Praise: But I had a lot of also really great friends who encouraged me to just like, like they were like, the best movie that you're going to make is the one that you're happy with.
And so
Fanshen: Absolutely
Praise: to have it like be accepted by Sundance was like just this incredible moment of double validation. Because it was like, not only did I make, I made the film that I wanted to.
Fanshen: Yes. And they saw that.
Praise: Yeah. And they saw that. So it was really cool.
Fanshen: Thank you. Thank you for telling the story you wanted to tell, because it is, it is this reflection that we don't get to see often enough. [00:20:00] and, and the allowance to just breathe and to just be, to live, to allow the camera, to allow these characters to live.
And so we saw that. You mentioned what a challenging time it is financially and that you had to self-fund this. Um, so we do have a finances section segment on Sista Brunch.
Finances & Shooting on Film
Fanshen: We'd love to know whatever you're comfortable talking about, what the budget was for the film.
Praise: Yeah. Oh my goodness. The budget was, and then the budget was, and was and was.
Fanshen: Mm-hmm.
Praise: It just kept climbing, is
Fanshen: What you start with and yes. And is, and I would imagine, given that you gotta get folks to Sundance, you still raising money and Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Praise: It just keeps climbing. I will just say that my hope is that it ends at one $150k. But it was a very expensive film to make because we shot on film and not only did we shoot on film, we shot on 35, which is a lot more expensive than 16.
And we shot on [00:21:00] location, you know, like in Virginia. So it, it took a lot to make the film.
Fanshen: It's so worth it. It's obviously so worth it. I was gonna ask you that because, you know, there, there was a piece of me that was like. Did they digitally add in the film reel? You know how there's so many moments where, and, and initially I was like, is this snowing in Virginia?
It don't snow in Virginia, right? Like, and then you're seeing just these and then that, you know, and then you realize this, this beautiful texture and that it is this period piece. but my goodness, yes. I love that you're like, I'm gonna tell the movie. I want to tell. That's gonna be a period piece. In a, in a, you know, town that I don't know.
Praise: Oh my goodness. Yeah,
Fanshen: I can imagine. I can imagine.
Praise: That was an experience.
Shooting in Appalachia During Election Week
Praise: We shot a film in Fries Virginia, spelled, spelled like fries. In the, in border of, uh, [00:22:00] between nor, uh, Virginia and North Carolina. And we shot in the Appalachian Mountains. During election week, so
Fanshen: Oh no.
Praise: Our president was elected.
Fanshen: Oh no.
Praise: And the third day of shooting, we woke up and we were like, wow, we are a bunch of People of Color In the middle of God knows where.
Fanshen: Oh my.
Praise: Making a film about, about, uh, migration. Immigrants, and we knew that things were about to change
Fanshen: This thing that's being attacked for a lot
Praise: Of those people in this country. So it was really surreal to be shooting in that place during that time. And, you know, there were, there were so many, uh, random pockets of people who extended us grace and were so kind and that was really encouraging. And then there were, there, there was the obvious,
uh, yeah.
Fanshen: It that just adds a whole new layer to, to what you've made. Um, that's beautiful. It's so interesting. I, I, I, you know, as I was preparing for this, just looking [00:23:00] online at the different synopsis for it and, and there were some that said it's through the eyes of the mom and then others that said, it's through the eyes of Birdie, and it is through the, I think it was Mom and and English, but I thought that was interesting because of course when I watched it, I was, I was pulled into English's experience.
Praise: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Fanshen: But then I was like, my goodness, yes there's this, we, we, um, we got to show, um, Ekwa Msangi's film, Farewell Amor.
Praise: Mm-hmm.
Fanshen: And, that, so then I'm also like, oh my gosh. But there's all these possibilities for this to end up, for us to be seeing the, the, you know, these three different stories.
So just to, you know, I, I, I can't wait to see the feature. And, and, and this was another reason truly that we wanted to have you on, because whatever our community can do to continue to support you and, and you know, and hopefully you don't have to raise the next amount on, on your own.
Let's Talk Tech
Fanshen: so we'll go to our Let's [00:24:00] Talk Tech question and, and that can be whatever you'd like to share, something, uh, you know, a piece of technology verbiage, et cetera, that someone who doesn't do what you do, uh, wouldn't know it if they heard the word.
Praise: Yeah. Um, my favorite is a very unserious one, which is "Sticks", and that means something very sharp is coming your way. And it's a very important one because as you know, film is a very, very, intensive and, and it's like, you know, you're, you have to be so focused and sometimes you're just like down in the weeds and you hear someone yell STICKS! and you just have to get out of the way or something bad's going to happen.
Fanshen: Nice. I love it. We have not had that one before. I love it. You know, and again, you're like, it saying sticks in Appalachia, you're like, oh, there's a stick on the ground. You know, you're like, wait, no, there's sticks coming. I love it. That's great. That's great.
Signature Sista Brunch Question
Fanshen: Alright, so our Signature Sista [00:25:00] Brunch question is you Praise and your younger self, and she can be whatever age you'd like to, you know, whatever age she needed to hear from you.
You're sitting down to a Sista Brunch and what are you both eating and what are you both drinking and what do you tell her?
Praise: Hmm. We're drinking some sort of hibiscus drink and, um, we're having, Hmm, this, that one's a hard one. We're having oysters so random.
Fanshen: Oh, oh, okay. That we, that that is a first. That is a first. But they're good. They're good. Little butter, a little cur, like the mm-hmm.
Praise: Yeah. Definitely.
Fanshen: Nice.
Praise: Definitely
Fanshen: Nice.
Praise: Um, what I would say, you know, I, I will, I would say to Praise coming out of college, "It's gonna be okay, Girl." Like you're gonna, you know, I think there's, there's this angst, um, especially [00:26:00] with when you're, you know, with younger people.
When you're young, it's like you feel like if you don't make it now, it's, that's the end of your life. But the really beautiful and gracious film thing about film is, is that it actually, it, works to live your life a little bit and to grow with the form. And so, you know, I wish I could tell, actually, you know what?
I really wish I could, I could tell her it's okay to make a bad film. That you'll recover from this.
Yeah. And I, 'cause I think that, um, you know, women especially and Women of Color, it can feel like you, there's no room to make mistakes, but you can't grow unless you try and make those mistakes.
So I would just tell her like, you just grow with it, it's gonna be fine. Take your time. There's no rush. It'll happen when it's supposed to happen.
Fanshen: Yeah. That's beautiful. Praise.
Closing
Fanshen: We wish you just an amazing time at Sundance. We, we wish that somebody gonna walk up to [00:27:00] you after this and be like, how much do you need to make this? Just such a pleasure to meet you. We're, we're so happy to be able to welcome you into the Sista Brunch family.
Praise: Such a pleasure to talk to you. I was delighted to get the email. I mean, you're creating such a warm and beautiful space, for us. And so thank you for holding this space and um, and just also being such thoughtful watchers and consumers you know of, of film. So really, really appreciate this time.
Thank you.