Growing up between Atlanta and Abuja, Nigeria, Boma Iluma got his first taste of the creative arts as an actor in commercials for the NBA and the Cartoon Network before segueing to plays in the local theater scene.

Spreading his creative wings, Boma stepped behind the camera, where he immediately achieved recognition for his 2019 visual art piece Negus, which focused on how Blackness in America involves being actively unseen and violently misunderstood. He then returned to the commercial fold, this time behind the camera, where he helmed the piece Heirs for Nike’s Air Jordan, a Generation Z reimagining of the iconic brand.

Recognition soon followed the gifted artist who was showcased for his short Comfort (2021) by the ‘Rising Voices’ initiative, which set out to uncover, invest in, and share stories created by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) filmmakers and storytellers on the theme of the meaning of work and how jobs can change us all. He also was selected as one of the 32 recipients of the ‘Young Guns 19” winners, the industry’s only global, cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based awards competition that identifies and celebrates today’s vanguard of young creatives.

It was through that achievement that Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford Coppola, outreached to Iluma to be part of his bold cinematic experiment The Seven Faces of Jane (2022); where several directors would create, and oversee their section of the anthology film that follows Jane, who tumbles through a gauntlet of surreal, beautiful, and heartbreaking adventures, each one more unexpected than the next.

What was your reaction when you got the call to be part of this process for The Seven Faces of Jane? Had you ever heard of eight directors sharing a project?

I mean it’s a crazy concept. There are a few examples of this, with other directors having done similar projects in the past. I thought why not throw my hat in the ring. I was looking forward to working with these filmmakers and obviously Roman Coppola is Roman and there’s Julian Aosta, Gia, and the whole team, they are really accomplished directors in their own right, so I felt really honored to be selected and to be a part of this. I was like why not.

From what has been told, each director had free reign to compose their short within the feature, but they had no idea what the other directors were doing. How did you navigate that continuation of character?

We didn’t know anything about each of the other or what the other directors were doing. How it worked is that we started off after all the directors were confirmed, and we all played the game, Exquisite Corpse. We all drew cards and the cards told you your order, so what number, what sequence in the film is yours. So, you play what theme it’s going to be and I pulled the card for Encounter with A Stranger and feature, I think that was it. We all picked our cards and that was the last contact we had with each other. That is until we all saw the rough cut, the rough assembly of all the films put together. 

Did you try and pry information out of your Jane when she arrived on your set about what the others had done?

Yeah, it would be a little bit like oh she just came from a rehearsal, or she just came from a fitting from this director’s thing and it’s like hmm, I wonder what that rehearsal is for.  I didn’t really get much information at all.

What did you find the challenge for your sequence, which was the beach?

Well, my sequence is, it’s a lot of, it’s two timelines. It’s a very heartfelt piece, and it’s talking about Jane and her ex-boyfriend from ten years ago. The challenge was to really carve out these performances so the audience can really attach themselves to the story and what they have going on, it’s a character piece. So yeah, thankfully, my actors are Gillan and Chido, who played Olivier and Tayo, they are both extremely talented, so it wasn’t too difficult to carve out those performances. But when we were writing the script, I thought, “how are we going to be able to figure that out”, because we wanted to be as real as possible.

You grew up in Atlanta then moved to Nigeria. Has the Nollywood film community inspired you?

There’s always been a great artistic industry, artistry coming out of Nigeria, Nollywood being one of them, Afrobeat is big right now with Burna Boy, Tems, and Wiz Kid, all the Nigerian artists that are like making their cross to the West. My first feature, the project that I want to make that we are working on right now, does take place in Lagos, so we will see what happens with that. I want to work there, I want to create films for places in the places I grew up. And all my best friends live in Abuja, all my family, my parents live in Nigeria, my cousins. I go back and I create work there. And obviously my shorts, The Seven Faces of Jane and Comfort, they take place within Nigerian stories. It would be great to go back.