Director Sade Abiodun discusses her short film, Godspeed, with NFFTY Senior Programmer, Robert Speewack. Godspeed screened in the Call Your Mother screening at NFFTY 2020.

This is the first time I’ve covered the National Film Festival for Talented Youth. They pride themselves in being “the world’s largest and most influential festival for emerging filmmakers”, and the films on offer reflect that. Each filmmaker selected has to be in the beginning stages of their career, and there’s an additional emphasis placed on work which is representational in terms of diversity. We’ve distilled their terrific programme down to ten of our favourites which we think highlight what makes this festival so special…

We sit down with Sade Abiodun, a filmmaker and neuroscientist, to discuss her short film Godspeed, as well as her research interests in neurocinematics. Join us to dive deeper into this sensory exploration of Black womanhood, personhood, faith and community, and to learn how neuroscience and art can become one.

Sade Abiodun is the kind of person who you can talk to for hours as you jot down quotes of her wisdom on post-its throughout the conversation. Her musings on the whys of life, the interconnectedness between different schools of thinking, and the unspoken link between beings are a welcome reprieve from the mundane. Given the fact that she's a budding filmmaker and an incoming PhD student at Princeton, where she'll be studying Neuro-cinematics (the neuroscience of film)...well, that checks out…

Durham’s Hayti Heritage Film Festival is one of the nation’s longest-running Black film festivals. This year, the lineup includes the breakout work of Duke alumna Sade Abiodun, Trinity ‘18. Her short film “Godspeed” premiered at the San Diego Black Film Festival earlier this month and has been selected for film festivals across the country. But if you ask Abiodun if she considers herself a filmmaker, it might take her a moment to say yes…