An overhead shot establishes the narration that steadily culminates into a guided delegate visit to Badagry heritage museum and the palace of the traditional ruler, Akran of Badagry, De Wheno Aholu-Menu-Toyi I. This homecoming event christened ‘The Door of Return Ceremony’ sets the background for this documentary film. Produced in association with the Lagos State Government and Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), the documentary opens with remarks by the Chair, NIDCOM, Abike Dabiri setting the tone for the visual narrative.

A linear story is told: slavery was at first cloaked in the form of evangelism. Some Portuguese in search of gold came to propagate the seeds of Christianity in Africa but, in the process, they captured Africans and took them for cheap labor. That became the basis of this dangerous expedition into a point of no return in global discourse. Right in the heart of Badagry, an ancient coastal town in Lagos with a powerful heritage, the director Ronke Macaulay allows her lens to rummage through everyday people, historical accounts, capturing cenotaphs of lost heroes in the dark alleys of history. Indeed, Hidden Treasures: Badagry 4th Door of Return (2023) captures the exclusive interviews, traditional ceremonies, a special theatrical performance and the focal point, the poignant walk along the Slave Route to the Point of No Return (See Fig. 1).

Figure 1. A scene from The Point of No Return in Badagry. Delegates as well as slave returnees wade through water.

This production is trailing a precedence set by the director. In 2015, Macaulay began to explore storytelling via the medium of film, having been trained on Directing at Film School, South Africa in 2016. With a couple of film projects done, her first solo documentary was a 2017 production titled Green Passport in the Rainbow Nation: The Story of Nigerians in South Africa, which birthed the Green Passport Series. Other films include Green Passport in the Gold Coast: Nigerian Students in Ghana (2017) and Green Passport at France ‘98 (2018). Her fourth documentary was Badagry: The Joy of Return (2020), which had its world premiere at the Pan African Unity Dialogue in New York in the same year of release. In all her movies, Macaulay has consistently explored the power of the untold story with the recurring themes of migration and identity.

With Hidden Treasures (2023), Macaulay’s storytelling style has not really deviated from the concept of identity and self-determinism. For instance, in the Green Passport Series, she explored the stories of identity, xenophobia, and negative stereotypes. In Hidden Treasures, she digs deeper, using stories told by traditional rulers, the tour guide named Anago Osho, museum curator, Peter Olaide Mesewaku, delegates from diaspora headed by Dr. David Anderson, returnees and surviving descendants of slave trade merchants—one of whom is the current traditional ruler, the Wawu of Badagry—to burrow into the sands of history. According to oral history, the Wawu family united with the British to end the slave trade in 1849. Without the strong presence of historical signposts such as relics of actual buildings that housed slaves, slave ships as well as heritage plaques, telling stories of this magnitude could be implausible while aspects of this dark history that lasted for over 400 years could be consigned to oblivion. Macaulay followed the paths of history physically and psychologically to locate the place of healing for returnees, black communities in Diaspora and Africans in Africa. Through this oral narrative, Macaulay is able to retell and crystallize the story laced with the themes of collective trauma and healing as well as existentialism.

With Hidden Treasures, Macaulay makes a valuable contribution to preserving histo-cultural heritage within the current climate of cultural erosion. Indeed, the use of water as a visual metaphor in the Hidden Treasures resonates with certain thematics in African and transnational cinemas. In Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl (1966) and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny (2022), water is a symbol of migration, not just as a geographical detail. (See Rebecca Wynne, “The Way of Water in Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl [1966] and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny [2022],” Journal of African Cinemas 15, no. 1 [2023]: 69–84.) In Hidden Treasures, the water motif visually articulates a two-sided narrative: of recollection and repatriation.

Macaulay adopts her typical news story-styled narration but what seems to be lost is the immersive cinematic experience. The transatlantic slave trade story is one that is deeply emotional with layers of healing for visitors as well as culture custodians. More cinematic effects could have escalated the cascade of emotions to the visual storytelling. The filmmaker assembles a collage of interviews creating what shares some semblance with the theatrical Verfremdungseffekt—as theorized by German dramatist, Bertolt Brecht. This alienates the audience from being immersed in grief from the rehashed memory of transatlantic slave trade. That technique—albeit unintended—allows for rationality over crude sentiments, which is a sure pathway to healing.