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Director:Malakai Korede

Producer:Kiki Banjo

Untitled is commendable in its tender exploration of young love through the lens of an ambitious and meticulous filmmaker. Korede, with an inquisitive eye, treats its subject with gentleness, a curiosity that could veer into scepticism, if not balanced by the questions posed by producer Kiki Banjo. Stunning interstitials depict romance on campus: the first crush, blush, kiss, date and Banjo’s radio show. The producer and director make an exquisite team, pushing and pulling, challenging and learning as they go along. It feels as if we are falling in love with them; and in the end there is a precious reveal that makes the sojourn all the more satisfying. Though this film did not win the final prize, we want to specially commend it; unpolished, raw, it displays a truth, and we are excited to see what Korede–and indeed Banjo–do next, whether it be separately or as a team.

My hand, weakened by the phenomenon of abruptly halted blood flow, slips round the glass I’m holding, the liquid splashing my burning skin as I release an incredulous, ‘Kai?’ He blinks at me, equally stunned, his smile drooping off his face like cheese off a sloppy pizza. Lovely to know the new superpower I’ve acquired: the ability to disappear all joy from Malakai Korede. Oh God–a horrific thought hops into my mind–did he come here thinking he was going tohook upwith Taré? I feel light-headed, need to sit down, but sitting down would be weird right now, just a bizarre cherry on top of a towering sundae of fuckedupness and so I stay very still, hoping not to agitate my heartbeat further.

‘Oh, he actually prefers “Malakai”,’ Taré chides sweetly with intimate confidence. My nostrils immediately flare. ‘I tried to call him “Kai” once and he got all twitchy, says he hates being called that. Male artistes arethemost sensitive.’ She walks up to him, loops her arms round his neck, brushing her lips on his cheek before booping him on the nose. ‘Right, babe? You’re kind of a diva.’

Malakai’s arms move slackly around her in greeting, his gaze still on me.

I wonder what would happen if I vomit on this Moroccan rug right now? It looks very expensive. Would she take the cleaning fee out of my rate? Will I even have a rate to dock, because am I really about to take on a job to work with my ex-boyfriend who apparently has had vigorous sex (I am imagining it as vigorous–judging by her arms, Taré clearly does some kind of strength training) with my would-be boss? My stomach churns dangerously and I feel like I’m sweating beneath my skin.

‘Oh, sorry. I’m so embarrassed.’ I turn to Malakai who looks just as nauseous as I do as he drops his arms from round Taré. I don’t know if this is gratifying or infuriating. ‘Malakai.’My blood, now apparently flowing, seems to be making up for lost time by pumping so hard through me that I can hear it pulsing in my ears. I feel like the pressure could expel my soul from my body. I wish it would hurry up and get it over with. There’s a very real possibility that my nose might bleed.

Malakai is still staring at me, visibly stricken. ‘Kiki. I didn’t know you’d be here.’ I clamp my eager ‘well, no shit’ in between my jaws. We were supposed to ignore each other till the weddings, five months from now, enough time for all residual tension to fade into nothing, for me to book several therapy sessions and for my butt to get even bigger to enlarge his own regret. What I say now can make or break the situation, I know, and it is imperative that I maintain a semblance of cool maturity, obtain the upper hand.

I clear my throat. ‘My bad. I’m sure you were expecting to see Taré alone.’

Malakai’s gaze flattens into a blade that slices through my double-meaning with ease and then he looks so deliciously scrambled, so unwell, that for a moment, triumph breaks through my own acute distress. Then I remember that he’s had sex with a woman who was once on the cover ofVogueArabia.

‘Wait.’ Taré’s eyes jump between us, her brow furrowing gently. ‘You two know each other?’

‘From uni.’ It leaps out of me. ‘We know each other from uni.’ I am not about to jeopardise a potential career definer by making things even more unnecessarily messy. Malakai swallows tightly before affable charm suffuses his face and he shoots Taré an easy grin, quickly recovered, gathering his senses. One thing Malakai hates is looking rattled in public. ‘Right. Uni. Friends of friends. We’re acquaintances, really.’

I bite the inside of my cheek to stop my eyes from rolling. ‘I mean basically strangers.’ When he goes low, I’ll go scuba-diving in petty.

Malakai laughs, eyes brightly screaming ‘ain’t shit funny’. An admittedly sadistic sharp shock of satisfaction runs through me. I’ve slipped under his skin.

He speaks through teeth that are a shade away from being gritted. ‘Although I do remember my people saying you had a crush on me. Thought it was kinda sweet.’ Dick.He’s gone drilling into the earth’s core. My cheeks rage and my hand itches around my glass of watery cocktail. I want to splash it in his insufferably smug face. He knows all the paths to my irritation and he’s enjoying the journey. His eyes glint, knowing, playing, pulling on a grasp of civility.

Taré gasps in delight. ‘You’re lying!’

‘He is, actually.’ I shake my head, smiling with a geniality that I hope gleams like a knife’s edge. ‘You must be thinking of someone else.’ I run my eyes across him. A huge mistake really, because what I see reinforces the fallacy of my next sentence. ‘You’re not my type.’

Malakai pauses, and his gaze briefly flashes a private screening of a filthy featurette depicting him holding my orgasm in a single hand. His brow twitches and he chuckles softly, self-effacingly, pressing a palm to his chest in phony, pantomimed apology. ‘My mistake. Must have got you confused with someone else. There were a few.’ I think this man may have a death-wish.

I sip my drink and bite into the smooth pebble of ice that slides into my mouth, crunching into the cool to calm my boiling blood and to stop myself from saying something that would get us both into trouble. Malakai’s smile widens, reading the action accurately.

Taré, somehow, is oblivious to the fact that she stands in the midst of a battleground and claps her hands, ‘Oh, I love this! A reunion! Perfect. Let’s sit down.’

Malakai pulls a teal velvet chair over to us with the same enthusiasm as he would to watch a Tyler Perry movie and we sit stiffly in the world’s most awkward triangle. The effort that Malakai puts into not looking at me thickens the air. Taré twirls into it.

‘So, Kiki, I’m sure you’re familiar with his work, but Malakai’s an incredible director, just agorgeousvisual eye and world-building skill, and, Malakai, Kiki’s voice and ear and emotional knowledge and intelligence and imagination. . . shit,I get tingles thinking about the stories you guys can help me tell, which is why I needed you both to meet, get to know each other. See if we can get a creative throuple going on, you know?’

I briefly wonder for which sin I’m being punished. Like, what possible reason could there be for the cosmic joke being played on me now? Is this because I told my dad I found a new church to go to in lieu of going to my old family one when actually I’ve been listening to a Gospel playlist every Sunday whilst cleaning my make-up brushes? I know for a fact that Taré couldn’t have seen mine and Malakai’s film,Untitled, because it’s on the seventh page of a Google search and password protected on YouTube, so this really has to be some sort of divine inter-tension.

I rub my neck and nod. ‘Sure. Sure. Cool. Cool.’ Celestial appears again to place an old-fashioned in Malakai’s hand and he immediately gulps it, his grunt of agreement warbling into the glass. I watch as the liquid glides down his throat. I idly imagine licking it. Clearly the shock of this entire situation has rattled my senses to such an extreme that all my impulses are scattered, so ‘lick’ is placed where ‘throttle’ should be. It is an inconvenient fact that he looks typically fine though, with his white shirt, brushed forest-green flannel overshirt and tan tapered chinos. Trim, but no longer as slim as he was when we were younger, his muscled broadness fills out the dinky chair in which he’s nestled. I’m staring, something I only realise I’m doing when Taré’s raspy laugh interrupts me.

‘I gotta say, Malakai, you’re the loose link here. Kiki’s the one I really want and if she doesn’t like you, you’re out, so play nice, yeah?’

Malakai pulls the glass from his face and leans back in his seat. ‘Come on, Taré. You ever known me not to play nice?’ Taré’s brow hitches, and her mouth twitches in flirtation. ‘You sure you want me to answer that in front of company?’

It strikes me that I don’t really have any valuable possessions to leave to anyone, and Aminah will be so pissed to have to make one of her sisters her maid-of-honour. These thoughts occur to me because I am now certain that I’ve died after doing something so fucked up in my earthly life that I am currently in my own specially designed pocket of hell. There is no other conceivable reason why I’m being forced to witness my ex-boyfriend flirtwith a stunning, talented, funwoman, who could be responsible for me being able to pay a mortgage.

Theoretically, of course, I don’t care. Malakai can do what he wants. We are a non-factor, and this is none of my business. Realistically, though, I’m feeling kind of violent. My eyes drift to his shoes. Very nice. Special edition Nike Dunks in a nineties block-colourway: pink, green, yellow. They suit him. I want to microwave them.

Taré’s smile tilts and she raises a brow at this and turns to me. ‘Didn’t I tell you, sis? He’s problem.’