The Nigerian boy, Anthony Madu, whose video that captured him dancing barefoot in the rain went viral in 2020, is the one of the next future projects Disney is working on, as he gets a feature documentary on Disney.
The announcement was made by Disney Original Documentary at the D23 Expo, which held in California, USA, where it unveiled its future projects.
The upcoming documentary titled ‘Madu’ captures the events that took place after a 44-second video of Anthony Madu dancing in the rain was uploaded.
Then 11 in the video, Madu’s flawless pirouettes and leaps stunned many viewers across the world, especially as he never got training from a trained ballet teacher of repute and living in such a remote poor setting in Nigeria.
The video earned him a scholarship at the 100-year-old Elmhurst Ballet School in the U.K. The feature documentary wil be directed by Nigerian director Joel ‘Kachi Benson, who won the Venice Award in 2019 for his virtual reality documentary ‘Daughters of Chibok’, alongside Oscar nominee, Matt Ogens.
In a statement released, Ogens and Benson said, “Our shared journey is about curiosity and creating an understanding of different cultures through our connection with each other.
Ultimately, this is a journey of discovery, growth, belonging and acceptance, a theme we both personally relate to. Making his voice heard is our ultimate drive, and we believe Anthony’s extraordinary story will make the most captivating, emotional, and riveting film either of us has told”.
‘Madu’, footage of which was shown to audiences at the D23 Expo is produced by Jamie Patricof, Katie McNeill and Rachel Halilej of Hunting Lane Films, while Marjon Javadi oversees the project for Disney Original Documentary.
