Your Past Influences Your Future
An Interview with Abraham Adeyemi

We all have those ride-or-die friends, the ones with who we spend groundbreaking moments, the ones who were supposed to stay in our lives forever. The reason for the inevitable disconnect can be varied, but they always seem to include an element of growth. One friend feels they have to move away to fully experience life, to leave the proverbial nest. The beauty of these friendships is that no matter how the separation happens, the closeness continues to live on in our hearts. 

No More Wings, the directorial debut of Abraham Adeyemi, explores the concept of the distant friend. In this short film, two childhood friends from South London, Isaac (Ivanno Jeremiah) and Jude (Parys Jordan) meet for dinner at their favorite eatery from their youth to catch up. These two friends have not seen each other in a while, and the distance and awkwardness of their two diverse worlds is center stage during the meal. History, however, has a strong pull, and their connection emerges through the separation.

While this story is something that is very personal to Adeyemi, he never set out to be its director. Instead, the decision to direct was made because of what was needed for this project. No More Wings needed something that couldn’t find anywhere but in Adeyemi’s own heart. 

“It was an idea [No More Wings] I’d had for a few years, but no other director had shown the passion for it that I had,” Adeyemi adds. "So it made sense that it needed to be me behind the camera to bring it to life.”

Even if we never imagine ourselves branching out into a new creative avenue, the pull to explore our own emotions through art can be too difficult to pass up. The connection Adeyemi felt with No More Wings might not have been the situation at hand, two friends reconnecting but instead was the conversation that transpired.

A debate at the heart of No More Wings revolves around the idea of staying in the environment you grew up in or expanding your horizons and moving on. Can a person grow emotionally and mentally if they stay in their hometown forever? For me, I not only have had this conversation with friends, but also wonder if I missed out by sticking with my hometown. 

“I sometimes think of the whole film as a conversation with myself, weighing the pros and cons of each scenario,” Adeyemi adds. “I think the emotional center of the film is being able to connect to both sides of the argument.”

The ability to see the connection to the ideas of both propositions is important. No matter what our personal verdict may be, we have to acknowledge there are benefits to both. Just because someone is doing the opposite of what we choose does not mean it’s a bad thing. We can not forget the good and bad qualities that lie in both decisions.

That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? If we come into a situation with a preconceived notion or stance, that our way is better than the other, we miss the beauty that lies within a disagreement. Our perception of things will always affect our perspective. Sometimes, though, the history that lies between people will push through the perceptions, allowing more to come through than perception. The friendship between Issac and Jude creates layers of a deep, meaningful friendship that influence the respect the other has for their paths in life. 

“Friendship, the brotherhood, is integral to the film, but that feeling/sentiment isn’t necessarily gendered,” Adeyemi says. “The deep histories of our relationship impact our present-day relationships in ways we don’t always acknowledge.”

Adeyemi chose to showcase the deep connection between these childhood friends through flashbacks. The flashbacks allow the No More Wings audience to see the teen versions of Issac and Jude when they were incredibly close, almost as if you are seeing their true selves outside their adult personas. Seeing this brotherhood helps you understand not only the connection we feel but the longing to reconnect that exists between us.

 “The adults [Issac and Jude] were always going to be at the forefront, but I realized that understanding and seeing their history was also important. It wasn’t enough to depict the present, but how did they get to where they are,” Adeyemi explains. “We needed to know how close they were, how similar their adolescent experiences were. We needed to feel the ocean-like separation that exists between them in the present, yet still, maintain a closeness that’s held together by a string.”

One thing that stuck with me after viewing was the ideas surrounding gentrification. While most that experience this are lower-income, minority dominate neighborhoods, it doesn’t always have to mean that they are being whitewashed. There is a pride that is being restored, a culture that is being represented and honored when a neighborhood is renovated.

The idea of revamping the stagnant beautifully mimicked the growth that these two men have experiences since their time apart. It was interesting to see such a heavy topic, even if it was parallel, present at a trivial meet-up between old friends. The conversation said so much about something we were not witnessing. I wasn’t the only one who saw these dual ideas play out within the story, but Adeyemi didn’t think the conversation was out of place.

“These are no different than the conversations my mates and I have had over the years,” Adeyemi says. “People of varying backgrounds, cultures, races, and ages have intense, intellectual, and even trivial conversations everyday and anywhere, even in a Michelin star restaurant in Mayfair or in Morley’s in South London.”

It may be a natural occurrence between friends, but the fact that they can slip into the ease of a heavy multi-layers topic is proof that these two young men are still very connected.  No More Wings is a perfect example of how if we let our expectations of situations go, we can find common ground in the deep connections we have with people.

There is a beacon of hope for lost friendships that is expressed through No More Wings, that distance can not break true connections. And then we reach the ending, with a twist that emotionally wrecks you, that one of our heroes becomes a product of his environment. Adeyemi had a hard time writing this portion of the film, too, for all the emotions that were evoked. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, switching from sadness to disappointment to frustration, and it’s a testament to his writing ability that those emotions came through the script.

“It’s such a complicated moment [seeing the drug deal happen] which is open to interpretation, many people ask what it means and question everything that’s happened up until that point as a result,” he adds.

The twist may be heart-wrenching, adding depth to the overall story, but I found myself wondering if adding the element of drugs to a run-down neighborhood was borderline cliche. I was curious if Adeyemi felt that pull towards cliche, even if the ending was the emotionally powerful moment he always meant for it to be.

“I’ve always felt a certain confidence in my writing, the way I explore issues and subject matters. As such, it doesn’t tend to cross my mind that I might be treading into cliché territory,” he explains. “At a very early point in my creative journey, I knew that I wasn’t keen on telling stories that were considered stereotypical or clichéd. Because of that, I’d like to think that my writing tends to avoid what you’re referring to.”

In short, his writing is authentic. The authenticity of Adeyemi has led to the authentic story of No More Wings. This is a short film that explores two friends reconnecting after decades apart but is so much more than that. It is because of this authenticity that we can relate to the emotional depth of the film, evaluating our own perceptions and how they affect the past connections we find in our present.

No More Wings is under consideration for the 2021 Academy Awards, Live Short category.

Written by Lisa M Mejia
Images provided by London Flair PR