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Africa's wildest musician pioneered a genre, married 27 women, battled dictators and stoked a revolution.
Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney (Magic Trio: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place, MIFF 2011; Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliott Spitzer, MIFF 2011) tackles the extraordinary life of Nigerian musical pioneer, political maverick and global superstar Fela Kuti.
The master documentarian faces one of the most contradictory figures in African culture. Fela Kuti goaded brutal Nigerian dictatorships throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s with his fiery, outspoken music, while womanising, flirting with bloody cults and partying along to Afrobeat's skyrocketing popularity.
Exhilarating archival performances and political uprisings are sewn together with insights into the production of the biographical Broadway smash musical FELA!, making the film a riveting patchwork that attempts to capture this most complex and charismatic character.
"Always interesting, frequently explosive." – Hollywood Reporter