The Lion that Guards the City

Logline

An African king runs for city mayor of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

Synopsis

The Lion That Guards the City is an African expression and originally sounds like "Agunechemba". This is what the main character of the film calls himself. His real name is Richard Arinze Ogbunuju and he is the first-ever black African man in the history of Georgia to participate in local elections as a mayoral candidate. Richard arrived in Georgia almost 30 years ago, like most Nigerians in those times he also anticipated Georgia as the gate to Europe but unlike many others who left disappointed, he decided to stay.

Ten years ago he established a small African kingdom in Georgia and announced himself a king and even held a coronation ceremony. After another ten years, the king decided to run for Tbilisi mayoral elections.

Teamed up with a very ambiguous local party he kicked off a political campaign. While the outcome of this political race for Richard Ogbunuju is more or less predictable, in the film we follow him in this journey where he bravely exposes himself to controversial reactions.

What Challenges and accomplishments has he to deal with while playfully trying to set a precedent of participation?

Producer's Note

The film project is at an advanced level of production; A large part of the material is already filmed, including archived material illustrating the main protagonist’s earlier activities; (living in Georgia, coronation, kingship). The project is aimed at being a feature length documentary. We are eager to reach out to industry platforms and funds focused on supporting projects at this stage of production as well as co-producers willing to join us on board.