Clarissa

In this modern reimagining of the Virginia Woolf novel Mrs. Dalloway, society woman Clarissa (Sophie Okonedo) prepares to host a party at her home in Lagos, Nigeria, where she will unexpectedly encounter once-intimate friends from her past.

Nigerian brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri move the story from early twentieth-century London to present-day Lagos, Nigeria.

The film moves fluidly between Clarissa’s present life and the world of her younger self (played by India Amarteifio), creating a portrait of a woman reflecting on the person she once imagined she would become. Intricate relationships, passionate love, hidden desires, and lost aspirations give rise to bittersweet reckoning.

At the same time, Clarissa expands Woolf’s concerns to explore contemporary Nigeria, including questions of class, colonial history, social expectations and the distance between different worlds.

Seductive at first glance with its striking cinematography and carefully observed performances, Clarissa also touches us with profound considerations about memory and the passage of time, about the lives we choose—and the lives we leave behind.