On the 1st of January, 2024, C.J Obasi, the filmmaker behind last year’s critically acclaimed black and white fable, Mami Wata, announced via social media (twitter) that he had been invited alongside a diverse selection of scholars, artists and practitioners to take up a spot in the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Residency Program.

The Bellagio Centre Residency is a 4-week long program which intends for its participants to channel their creativity on their ongoing projects in an environment carefully put together to stimulate and encourage expressions. The recipients of this residency are always sourced diverse fields of expression with the residency’s alumni network boasting the talents of luminaries like Maya Angelou, Akin Omotosho, Ilwad Elmad and Nicole Hannah Jones.

The Residency’s projects address a wide array of topics, fields, and issues, with the core focus being projects that address social impact.

The dedication to social impact shared by all programs is connected with the Foundation's objective to "make opportunity universal and sustainable."

This informs their choice of projects for the residency, with a focus on those that challenge established norms and have the potential for substantial local, national, or global impact.

This is a recognition of the important work being done on the Nigerian frontier of filmmaking by C.J Obasi.

He will be, for the duration of his residency, working on a new project, La Pyramide: A Celebration of Dark Bodies.

Details on the project are few, with more information expected as the year goes on.