“The thing about beginnings is that they can feel equal parts empowering and scary. On one hand, you are excited there’s a shedding of things that no longer serve, and on the other, everything you’ve been told and taught tells you to dread this place and see it as some sort of decline, because in the end what use are you if you are not forever young.” — Ore Badmus, Death To Thirty.
As women approach the milestone of turning thirty years old, they are often met with a barrage of socio-cultural expectations and speculations dictating what their lives should look like at that age. As these societal pressures loom in our daily interactions with the world, we mostly unconsciously adopt an internalized checklist that leaves little room for the realities of our very different individual paths.
Death To Thirty directed by Ore Badmus, is a compelling documentary that challenges these conventions and celebrates the diverse experiences of women navigating this pivotal moment in their lives.
What started out as a personal project for Badmus in celebration of her coming of age into this new decade of her life, has now fully morphed into a data-led documentary that offers an insightful exploration of the journey faced by women on the cusp of thirty as they strive to rise above these societal expectations and define success and even the mere course of their lives, on their own terms.
Through candid interviews of women in their early to late 20s and women fully in their 30s, the documentary captures honest conversations around misconceptions, evolving perceptions of self, diverse personal narratives, triumphs, and challenges. In its approach, it highly advocates for self-discovery, self-empowerment, and self-fulfillment that comes only from within and goes beyond age stereotypes, offering an essential contribution to the discourse around the experiences of women at this transformative juncture.
Ahead of its release, we spoke to the director and creator of Death to Thirty, Ore Badmus, and Amaka Amaku, one of the women featured in the documentary, giving us a fuller insight into what this documentary meant for them and a bit about their personal experiences navigating societal expectations that they have encountered.
How did the Journey of Death to Thirty begin?
I turned 30 two years ago and at the time, I and two of my close friends, who work in the film industry as well, we were just like, what do we want to do for ourselves, what personal projects did we want to do for that year and we each said what we wanted and for me, this was what I wanted to do for my 30th birthday.
As we started to do research and I started to talk to women like me who were about to turn 30 or who were already in their 30s, it seemed like there was a bigger story to tell here.
I also realized that some of the anxiety that I had, some of the questions that were popping in my head ahead of my birthday, and ahead of this new decade were also shared amongst some women I had spoken to.
So I then decided, I told my friend who also doubles as my writer and producer, I told her that, this is bigger than me and I think that there is an important story here to tell.
There’s a lot of socialization that has happened around the big 30, especially for women, yet, there’s still so much silence around what the realities of 30+ is, around the realities of a 20-something year-old who’s about to be 30, So I was like, you know what? we’re going to give voice to people who have been there.
So the documentary features women in their early and late 20s, as well as women in their early 30s and late 30s, we decided we are going to give voice to all of the women in these age groups to just hear them out outside of what, the society has said this decade entails, get first-hand accounts of what the realities are and do our best to get it across to as many women as we can.
What were the key aspects of your subject matter that you wanted to explore in the documentary?
I think at this point it would be great to mention that it’s a data-led documentary. What this means is that we carried out a survey of about 119 women to, you know, sort of hear from them, get a sense of how they’re feeling about the things that we wanted to address. I mean, the documentary is not meant to take sides per se but some of the things that were discussed in the documentary were taken from the survey that we ran. So around topics like money, marriage, of course, and childbearing also from a very, different perspective.
We had someone on the documentary mention that, she doesn’t think she wants to have kids. There was also someone who said that she never wanted to have kids, but after a couple of years of sharing love with their partner in their marriage, they now want to have kids.
So there are different perspectives on those, we also touched perspectives on sex, career change, health to be precise and so much more, we cover it all.
If any, how did the general process of the documentary influence your perspectives of the subject matter that you explored?
While the women would be interviewed, while they were speaking what happened was that some of the questions that I had and some of the anxiety and fears I had about this new decade were eased off, some not entirely because there’s also the question of you know personal responsibility to be done and there’s some that were consistent across all women, in such instance, it just gave me so much believe and faith in the unknown which is something I’ve always struggled with, so hearing from them gave me so much faith and you know hope in the unknown.
On the other hand, it also reinforced some of my existing beliefs, knowing that I’m not the only one who thinks a certain way about these things, there were women there who shared my thinking and by extension, there are other women in the world who think like me and it’s okay to think like this, it’s okay to have the views that we shared, and it is okay to want something for myself and speak for myself and determine the outcome of my life by myself on my own terms.
You also spoke in the documentary, have any of your personal beliefs and perspectives that you shared in the documentary been influenced by any of your own personal, socio-cultural, or religious background? If it did, has it changed over time and did that reflect in the documentary?
I would say that the cultural and religious beliefs I’ve held over time evolved way before the documentary was conceived. The things that I said and my perspective in the documentary were born out of years of learning, unlearning, and relearning most of the cultural, traditional, and religious beliefs that I’ve held and things that influenced me before.
I would have even thought that in my 20s I learned about myself and I knew myself but guess what? The moment I turned 29 and 30, it felt like it was a new person I was dealing with.
What was your approach in regard to intersectionality for the documentary?
In selecting the women, it was important to diversify the profiles of the women coming to the documentary, it was important that we get as many different perspectives as we could and a part of that was also getting a woman who is openly queer in Nigeria to come talk about her realities. How do I intend to deal with that? I don’t intend to deal with it.
It’s one of the things that the documentary is seeking to give more voice to. Whether people accept that this is what it is, the reality is this is what it is and queer people are here and they’re here to stay, so it was important to get as many different orientations and perspective profiles on the documentary.
In terms of other intersectionality, I would say that where the different women are in life, you know different stages, we have C-suite women on there, we have business owners on there, we had someone who was fresh out of uni and was on her first job there, so yeah, we have women of different financial status and demographic.
What challenges did you face during your journey creating the documentary, and if any, how did they impact the documentary and your experience as a filmmaker?
As a filmmaker, the first challenge is funding. It’s a self-funded project, in simple words I doled out the cash from my pockets and I’m so grateful that I did this like two years ago when the dollar wasn’t as crazy. Moving forward, I’ve told God that I don’t want to self-fund any of my film projects, but I digress, it’s a very unique project, not the regular documentary-type projects that you see out there so it was difficult getting people to buy into it and like I said, it was supposed to be something for like my birthday, and the moment it began to expand beyond that I hit the roadblock of funding.
The second challenge was personnel-based and also tied to money, the cinematographer that we originally got the quotation for was above budget, and in trying to sort that out the back and forth lingered up until the day before the documentary was going to be shot.
We didn’t have a booked cinematographer to shoot for us and this was a nightmare for me because we already had all the women ready to go. These are not actors, so they’re not used to the ups and downs of the industry, these are women in different walks of life. Then we had paid for other things like location and all of that, so it was very scary but thankfully we were able to get someone to come on board at the last minute.
I also missed my flight. So I reside in Abuja, and the documentary was shot in Lagos. I missed my flight, it was the first time I was ever going to miss my flight in my life. I had to book another flight with extra money that I did not have but I’m super grateful for friends who showed up and made me see beyond the financial issues, they made me see the goal and that helped my resolve and it meant that I had to fly in the morning of the documentary.
There were so many challenges in this, especially post-production. We lost some files even.
It’s taken two years to get here, but we’re finally here. And the lesson that I have learned as a filmmaker from this is to plan way ahead of time. I think that I left things too close to the D-Day. I’ve also learned to have a post-production supervisor, post-production dealt with me. Although it also helped that, you know, there were different people doing so many things. So there was the sound person, there was the motion graphics, and they were all like in different places, still, I’ve learned to have a post-production supervisor.
Do you have any memorable experiences from your production process?
The first one will be from that phone call with some of my friends, Tope Olowniyan and Oluwatunmise Oluyede, where we decided that we were going to do this documentary. I say memorable because it was a defining phone call for me, It was a phone call that set me on the path to action, to do, and not just do. I think that ever since I shot the documentary, it just opened doors for me, not like opportunities, but doors in the aspect of getting myself to bring something forth, to actually, you know, move.
The second will be on the day of the shoot, hearing all the women, speaking, I’m a story junkie, and more so even real-life stories. So it meant so much to me just to sit there, and hear these women speak candidly from their hearts and their lives.
I don’t take that for granted. Some things were shared, and I know that in another life or in a different circumstance, they might not have been, comfortable or vulnerable enough to share it, but I appreciate them speaking very vulnerably.
I think another memory will be between when I saw the first cut and when I saw the final cut. I don’t know if I can, but what the first cut did was, it just showed me like, “oh my God, all of this has come together“. And then the final cut, the emotions with the final cut were tied towards, “oh, finally we’re here” despite all the challenges that we had mentioned and the delay for two years, finally this baby is ready to go into the world. It was a very emotional moment for me.
What are your expectations in regard to what the documentary will be for viewers?
So my expectations. I mean, I’m not sure, first off, as a filmmaker, they say that your project, your baby is out in the world, and you have no control over it.
So you’re not necessarily supposed to have expectations, but I mean, when this was being put together, I hoped that you know the documentary would be a testament to the power of personal stories and data. I was hoping that a single combination of these two will spark important conversations that we need to have and empower all the other women out there who are about to turn thirty, to define the terms of their own success and happiness that comes with the age.
What aspects of womanhood for you, evolved as you approached 30 and how did that influence what you spoke about in the documentary?
Amaka Amaku:
So for me first thing, the first obvious change is that I realized that my life was mine and I had to start making these drastic changes. I started going to the gym, I started making my own meals, I started trying to lean towards more healthier habits and I don’t know if this is as a result of age but I just know that the older I got, the more these things just sort of aligned.
I also started being more selfish with who I am. I was a very open, very anybody-can-get-close-to-me type of person but the older I got, the more I realized that I was something to protect. And I’ve since just moved with that clarity. I became more aware of who I was and the fact that everyone did not need to have access to that.
Another thing I would say is that my sex drive definitely got higher, when I was much younger at some point I was convinced I was asexual because when people would talk about frequently getting horny, I couldn’t relate. I held the belief that sex was not that great, and I still do believe so but I also know that I am enjoying it a bit more as I have gotten older, I am also desiring it a lot more than before.
I also became very aware of my capability of bringing life into this world, I’ve always wanted kids, and the older I’ve gotten, the more closer to reality it has gotten. It is also manifesting in my life personally, I have at least four friends with kids and they all know whenever they need a break, I am the friend they can call to leave their kids with.
Ore Badmus:
For me, I would say that there were a lot of hormonal changes that occurred, what that means is I started acting out in many ways that weren’t recognizable to the 20+ version of me. It all came as a surprise to me and it took a lot of slowing down to sit with myself and realize what this new version of myself was demanding from me, to be cared for and understood. In terms of other changes, as Amaka said, sexual urges as well, my body started jumping me.
Reproductive health-wise, different things started to happen, I had to go to the hospital more. I became more assertive, I think that was an offshoot of the slowing down that I said I had to do. I got to a point where I told myself that this 30 I had heard about all my life is finally here and there’s nothing else I can do. I’m 30 and single, I’m 30 and still hustling capitalism but I’m here regardless and life continues. I knew that I wanted to live and thrive, so I just took the bull by the horns.
How have you both, as women, been able to stay open-minded to the changes that have come, and how do you intend to stay open to the changes that are to come?
Amaka Amaku:
For me, welcoming the changes has been really easy because I’m someone who doesn’t deny myself emotions or anything that comes from me, unless it’s harmful to someone else. For example, I used to enjoy the whole being outside, any new restaurant that came out I was there but getting into my late twenties, that lifestyle fell really fast, which was shocking because it was something that I thought I would do forever because I loved doing it.
Instead of mourning that girl I used to be, I welcomed it in terms of “okay, how can I make home feel great without the fear of missing out on parties and all“, and for me, it was just leaning into other things that enjoyed.
So I’ve always been very welcoming of these changes, this is just one of them, I’ve welcomed all the rest as well, the hormonal stuff happening with my body, the financial stuff happening in my account, lifestyle, and all the other wonderful things happening with friendships and relationships, I’ve welcomed them in a cycle/seasonal type of thing, I tell myself this is the era that we are in and we are going to live it and live it well because none of these phases last. Whatever life I find myself living at any point in time, I am living it in the most grand, most beautiful, and most celebrated way.
I do not deny myself anything new that the changes require as long as I have the capacity to. It’s been such an exciting way to live because there’s something to look forward to and that something is you.
In regards to changes in my person, my key to that is honesty with myself and the people who love me and are stakeholders in my life. When I accept any new change, that honesty with myself also translates to how I’m able to communicate to them that the version of me they knew before has changed and I can’t show up in ways that I used to.
Ore Badmus:
Unlike Amaka, it wasn’t easy for me because I learned that the unknown gets to me a lot; I work better with the familiar. It felt like I had done so much work with myself in my twenties that nothing could shake me and I had everything together but then entering my late twenties, everything I knew came crumbling and when that happened, I struggled with the changes it brought. It was not easy for me to transition into the new phase, I had to do a lot of new self-work and self-acceptance that cost me.
A big part of turning 30 is understanding that all the self-awareness that I supposedly had gathered in my 20s needed some form of self-governance. The moment I was able to get past the hurdles of change and realize that it was for the best, I was able to let myself live as authentically as I could in as many diverse expressions as I could. I have pledged to always live in the entirety of all the things that I want to be and do with my life.
In all of the assertiveness, I have also come to the realization that it is my world and I am in charge of it, everybody else around me, I give them permission to come into my world and there’s no need for me to worry what they think about the way I govern my own world. It wasn’t easy but the moment I was able to get past that and the difficulty with the unfamiliar, it was beautiful.
How have you both been able to handle stereotypes and block out the noise of societal expectations and just do you instead?
Amaka Amaku:
The great thing about me is that this is how I have always been. I’ve been able to block out the noise from at least since I was 23, so stereotype where? I don’t know what you are speaking about.
Ore said something about self-governance and that’s so important because that is the only government that matters to me, I am ungovernable, nobody can tell me sh*t, you don’t own my life and you won’t live or experience it so it’s a very big thing for me, every day I wake up and say f*** it to the world and do only what I please.
In my early 20s, doing this felt so radical but now I think most people around me are getting the memo and doing the same.
Ore Badmus:
Well, it wasn’t as easy for me. One thing I tell myself is that when I start bearing kids, I really want to instill courage in them, courage to be their own people, courage to speak their mind no matter what, and courage to show up as their full selves.
As a child growing up, I held on to a lot of what we would call progressive beliefs but then something changed within my teenage hood, I was very outspoken and it was met with a lot of shutting down and being told to calm down because I was a girl, in those moments a lot of things changed for me and I started to live my life based on what was expected of me and how society demanded I show up.
But then from my mid-20s and entering into my 30s, it was like a return to self, a return to that nine/ten-year-old girl who knew exactly what she wanted from life.
