Dallas Premiere: Holding Hope

Premiere in Dallas is scheduled for September 05, 2010: Location: Studio Movie Grill-Royal Lane [11170 N. Central Expy, Dallas, TX]

September 5 at 7:00pm – September 6 at 4:00am

Holding Hope is a Royal Arts Academy Production starring Desmond Elliot, Uche Jombo, Nadia Buari, Ngozi Nwosu, Rukky Sanda, Biola Williams and directed by Desmond Elliot. Based on an exclusive Interview with Uche Jombo by Bode Ojo of Golden Icons, she indicated that the “script started as a true life story of 3 cancer survivors; However, the movie focused more on only one of the survivors”, and it is a movie that she does cherish very much.

Holding Hope – Trailer

Exclusive Interview with UCHE JOMBO Regarding this Movie, HOLDING HOPE

Golden Icons:Can you touch base on your other movie project “Holding Hope”.

Uche Jombo: Okay, now I can talk about Holding Hope. Holding hope is also a movie that I cherish very much. In as much as I love to laugh, I am also very much aware about the serious things in life, especially things that are the effects of forces of nature, which you also do not have control over; for example, forces like cancer, death, and so on. Though this might cause me to reflect on life’s experience, but I can’t change what is, or what will be. The script started as a true life story of 3 cancer survivors. However, the movie focused more on only one of the survivors, as I personally think she had the most dramatic experience out of the three of them. I had a cancer story similar to the one Emem Isong had, and we kind of combined our thoughts together. The movie was written by three script writers – myself, Emem Nsong, and Uduak Emem Oguwamalam. It was a project we all believed in, and as a result we came together to produce it together. Desmond Elliot, Emem Isong and I were the Executive Producers. For a project to have these many brains coming together, you can only imagine that it must be huge and very dear to our hearts. It’s a movie that I intend and want people to see in the cinema, and be moved by it, cry about it, and at the same time, laugh. Really, life is too short, as there are things you can change in life, but there are also things you cannot change. However you can allow yourself to enjoy those things you can change, and be depressed about those you cannot.

Starring in the movie are myself, Desmond, Nadia, Ngozi Nwaosu, Rukky Sanda, Biola Williams and directed by Desmond Elliot. For the most part, the movie was shot in Lagos, and we also shot some scenes in America. Since the movie was cancer-related, the United States was the best option for executing a particular phase of the movie. Otherwise, people will say, if you have cancer and you are treating it in Nigeria, there is no hope for you. But I basically think we can all joke about cancer, but it should not be forgotten that it is a very serious issue. Just to let you know how serious it was, one of the characters that we were describing in the movie passed away before we even finished shooting the movie.

Golden Icons:By the way, just looking at the pictures that were taken behind the scenes of this movie, I saw a picture of you, which showed that you were kind of 50 lbs lighter, how did you achieve that?

Uche Jombo: Oh my God! First of all, I had to play one of the cancer patients, so while preparing for this movie; the movie directors made me sleep for only about 2 hours a day, even though I usually sleep between 5-6 hours on a regular day. Also, they made me do everything to ensure I look ill and pale, like someone that was not eating well (I was actually starving myself), and of course during the set, I did not wear make-up for the scenes, and I had to put white powder on my face to make me look like I had low blood count. That was pretty tough, for real. This actually got so many people talking about the way I look, and so many stories were propagated from that. I really should be upset about it, but on the contrary, I’m happy because I was able to achieve the looks that fitted the role of the character. For me, acting has gotten to the point where I have to fit into the character for it to make sense to the people watching the movie. In addition, I work out a lot, usually twice a week, but during this movie, I was working out about 5 times a week, which was extremely excessive for me.