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Viola Davis-starrer The Woman King premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is ready to be released in cinemas in the United States on September 16, 2022. The upcoming movie will focus on the erstwhile African kingdom of Dahomey and the kingdom's all-female warrior group Agojie.
Davis will essay the role of Nanisca, the general of the all-female warrior group, who decides to train a new generation of warriors to fight against the colonialists.
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Woman King features actors Lashana Lynch as Izogie, Thuso Mbedu as Nawi, Sheila Atim as Amenza, John Boyega as King Ghezo, and Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Santo Ferreira in pivotal roles alongside Davis.
The film is produced by Davis, Cathy Schulman, Maria Bello, and Julius Tennon, with Sony Pictures as the distribution partner.
Read on to find out more about the background of The Woman King.
The Woman King is based on the Kingdom of Dahomey during a period of colonial invasion
The historical epic film is inspired by true events that transpired in the Kingdom of Dahomey during the 19th century and around the period of colonial invasion.
Sony's synopsis of the film reads:
"The Woman King is the remarkable story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen."
The synopsis continues:
"Inspired by true events, The Woman King follows the emotionally epic journey of General Nanisca as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life."
The story for the film was first conceived by actor, producer, and writer Maria Bello, who learnt about the history of Agojie, or Dahomey Amazons, after she visited Benin, erstwhile Dahomey in 2016. Bello recruited Schulman to develop the story into a full-length feature film, which ended up being picked up by Sony's TriStar.
The script was first pitched to Prince-Bythewood in 2016 itself, but she could not take it up. Two years later, a full script convinced her to take the job.
The director told the Los Angeles Times that while it was the Marvel film Black Panther that really introduced the idea of an independent African nation, The Woman King could become a real-life testament to that.
"The biggest eye-opener was how much misinformation there is about these women and this culture given that so much of their history was written from the colonizer’s point of view. So it was really about separating the texts that were from that point of view, which were so disparaging and disrespectful, from the truth."
Schulman told the LA Times,
"You’re looking at a European colonialist describing a place they’re going to versus getting the story from the voices of the people themselves. And so it was trying to read multiple sources and trying to find a like-minded perception of things."
The research behind the film involved hunting down texts that were out of print and sourcing photos from the time period. Princeton professor and descendant of the Agojie women, Leonard Wantchekon, became the bridge between the film's crew and the period of Agojie's glory.
It is to be noted that the team of female warriors that protected T'Challa in Black Panther, known as Dora Milaje, were also modeled after the Agojie warrior women. In addition to the Marvel film, references of Agojie warriors can be found in Bernardine Evaristo's 2019 Booker Prize-winning book Girl, Woman, Other.
The Woman King will be released in cinemas in the US on September 16, 2022.
