“Death to Thirty Mirrors Diverse Experiences of 30+ Women” — Ore Badmus and Tunmise Oluyede
Ore Badmus's documentary, Death to Thirty intends to mirror the true experiences of women in their thirties.
There appears to be a tussle between women and the mythical boundary around the milestone age of thirty, and society heralds this tussle. For so long, women have been constantly told all sorts of preachings and forced to believe they must have their lives together by the time they clinch the big third-decade mark. This has resulted in the insane pressure and anxiety associated with this age mark, but in reality, very few people have their lives together by thirty and it is okay to not be among them — this is what Ore Badmus’s Death To Thirty aims to address.
The documentary was born out of a conversation among three friends as one approached her thirtieth birthday.
“I was going to turn thirty and I started to feel all sorts of ways,” Ore says. “And though I knew better, those negative voices still lingered, so I spoke to a few women in my circle. From the conversion, I knew it was [a topic] I had to amplify.”
Ore Badmus, Director of Death to Thirty
Tunmise Oluyede told In Nollywood that she scripted the documentary for two reasons. She wants to tell stories that make people feel seen and this element should always be reflected in her work. So Death to Thirty, which features women of diverse backgrounds and age ranges giving their thoughts about turning thirty, was a no-brainer for her because it was a conversation that needed to be had.
“We realized that a lot of the conversations around women getting older are in a negative light,” Tunmise says. “Thrity is seen as a state of decline and that is just not true. So we wanted to tell this story to highlight some of the beautiful things about getting older and silence the noise around the fear that women have been conditioned to live with at the idea of being in their thirties.”
Tunmise Oluyede, Writer and Producer of Death To Dirty
Although this documentary is centred around women turning thirty, it is for teen girls as much as it is for women older than thirty. It cuts across diversity as it addresses topics that are relatable to women of all ages and backgrounds. This is reflected in the intentionality behind the selection of women featured in the documentary.
“It was important to get enough representation but because it was a personal project, there [was only] budget to reach out to women in my circle and at most two circles away from mine,” Ore notes. “I would have loved to reach out to women in different states and far demography away from mine. The pool would have been wider but [even] with the budget constraint, it was important for us to get diverse stories, ages, sexuality, and social class too.”
Ore says that future projects will have more subjects, with the most immediate being an offshoot of Death to Thirty that is currently in preproduction.
Several things would stand out to the viewer of Death to Thirty including the narrative style and the data-infused approach to its storytelling. The production conducted a survey on 119 women with their data represented in pictographs on slides in the documentary. Ore emphasizes that data is crucial and there is just something about seeing the facts represented in numbers that makes it unarguable.
“It was important for us to capture the authenticity in the stories,” she explains “Going the data-led route allowed us to capture the realities of more women and represent their stories in a manner we wouldn’t have been able to had we taken a different approach.”
(The full report is on the documentary website for anyone interested in taking a thorough look.)
The journey of telling a story is a story in itself and making Death to Thirty was an elevated experience for both Ore and Tunmise. Tunmise is particular about highlighting the human experience and making people feel seen through her work. And the moment that stood out the most for her during the shoot was hearing the stories of these women on set.
“As a woman, I do not want kids.”
“Being in that room and seeing these powerful women talk about their experience made me feel seen, yes, this is it, the reason why I do what I do in the first place,” she says. “It felt like anything was possible because no woman was alone in her experience. As a woman I do not want kids, anytime people hear me say this, they expect that my reason is a deep, reasonable one but when they hear it, they think this is ridiculous. But on that set, there was a lady and when she was telling her story about not wanting kids, it was like she was me and I was her. It was so crazy because her reasons were my reasons too. I felt so seen and it was a full circle moment for me.”
Ore recalls the day as a powerful one because she almost didn’t make it to the set physically. “I had missed my flight and wondered if to direct virtually,” she recalls. “I remember stopping in my tracks in the middle of the shoot and realising I wouldn’t have gotten the same experience if I had directed virtually.
“I could see myself through a lot of these women. The 22-year-old woman we had on set was in an unfulfilled place in her career. At the end of the shoot, she messaged me that the experience on set made her realise that she wanted to explore the documentary aspect of storytelling. Today, she is in the UK doing her Masters in that [field] on a scholarship. Listening and seeing those women speak motivated her and gave her the clarity to pursue that path. That to me was a testament that I could bring something to life and have those women support in the way that they could and it was everything.”