Potent Secrets: Reviews by Critics

It's a brave attempt to discuss an issue that's often left in the closet in Africa--the idea that women are always the cause of infertility. And the needless familial pressures that often break up marriages. So, it's very, very good in that respect. Congrats on a promising debut!

Okey Ndibe
Author, Arrows of Rain (Heinemann, AWS)

Potent Secrets  is a refreshing piece to watch. The topicality of  the film’s concerns makes it a production that will be around for many years. It is engaging because it stays away from the beaten path of the video industry in West Africa. It catches the African modernity as it is. No pretensions and no hang-ups with the past. The present is just the amalgam which it is... of so much by way of temptations to do this or that to belong. So many will identify with the crises of the central characters, man and woman. And so many will be touched by the impulsions of the decisions we make or have to make for good or ill, either in the name of our egos or some of the cultural and atavistic problems which we subconsciously succumb to in the name of the subjective thing we call happiness. The problems of the characters are so real that it is difficult not to feel that it is a probe into the lives of too many people we know in our societies in Africa. I really congratulate the Potent Secrets Crew for what I am sure will remain a ground breaking work for the industry in Cameroun.

Chimalum Nwankwo
Professor of English
North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

Books By Prof Nwankwo

In a country where locally produced film or television dramas are hard to come by Potent Secrets was an eye opener.  Recently, together with staff, faculty, and students at the School of Theatre at the University of Southern California, I had the opportunity to watch a television drama from Cameroon that visually depicted contemporary Cameroonian social life.  In a light-hearted comedy, writer Joyce Abunaw examines serious problems facing youth, women, and family in Cameroon today.  Though, comic in places, there is no mistaking the serious undertones belying the message in the drama; Ms Abunaw unabashedly portrays the trials and tribulations that face many young women, and men in Cameroon today.  In an age of globalization when poverty, aids, and other social ills travail Cameroon as in other African countries, Potent Secrets examines the life of a few people as a microcosmic representation of life especially among Anglophone Cameroonians today.  As A Cameroonian myself I felt the film described contemporary life in Cameroon in detail and is a bold attempt at facing harsh realities that are unspoken of in Cameroonian society.  The use of English and Pidgin English perfectly complemented the messages.  Though there were a few drawbacks technically, this does not affect the overall message in the film.  It is a wonderful film from Cameroon.

M. Fonkijom Fusi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Theatre
University Park
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0791

For the first time since independence, Cameroonians, especially Anglophones, are having a taste of an instructive, incisive and yet gentle home-male movie destined for the large screen about them, acted by them for them as well as wherever else in the world people have a knack for enjoying a well told story.

Potent  Secrets is riveting, full of suspense and color, relaxing, soul-searching and yet very socially appealing. The dialogue is well crafted with a subtlety that enmeshes the story with hidden layers of meaning for those willing to probe beyond sounds and sights.

It sets very high standards, stepping in on a beautiful nation whose traditions are fraught with subliminal forces that have forced it onto a sure way to moral decay. After Potent Secrets, the excuse of witchcraft as the cause of countless maladies flies in the face of those who have been taking refuge in lie-telling, double standards and deception. A truly African film worth its place among the thrilling ones without resorting to witchcraft as deus ex machina, even in the heat of crises. Bravo! Tell the truth, face the truth and its consequences if you are man or woman enough of the choices you've made- a message which echoes throughout the unfolding drama without being intrusive.

Entertaining? You bet! And more than that, a cleansing portion, paving the way to the strait gate of spiritual humility.

Let the screening multiply beyond the cities to the villages. And of course, let the debates provoked by its screening, stew on. Sure enough, chips will fall. But wasn't it passed high time?

CONGRATULAT1ONS for a job well done. Just don't I want to see it again' Where and when next shall we gather?

Mary Ngu Ekukole (Journalist, poet, author, and Social Critic)

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