Cameroon’s West African Identity is Reinforced in Latest Action Thriller, L’axe Lourd

By Hans Ngala

It is not often that Cameroonians watch action-packed movies made by one of their own. That is why the new action movie, L’axe Lourd is causing quite a frenzy online and understandably so. It is the first ever Cameroonian action thriller.

In fact, the futuristic movie’s director, Nkeng Stephens describes it on Facebook thus:

“Set in 2035 in a fictional West African country – Njuana, La’axe Lourd (The Highway) is the first feature action thriller to come out of Cameroon. The movie has a 100% Cameroonian cast and crew. This feature film is an original idea by Nkeng Stephens. It is a tale of hard choices , courage, patriotism, betrayal and redemption that follows a gemstone which had been declared missing for over a decade.

The movie is a giant step for the Cameroonian movie industry. The stunts, car chases, gun battles and full contact combat all fall far off the edge of what we have been used to seeing in African cinema…”.

Having watched the trailer of L’axe Lourd, I couldn’t agree more with Stephens assessment.

The cinematography is superb for a Cameroonian movie – most of which are shot on a budget, this was very nicely done.

Scenes in which actors speak in Pidgin, the West African lingua franca are interspersed in the movie, albeit with a slight mélange of French. For example in the scene where one of the characters says “I di cam for pays” (pronounced payee), which is French for ‘country’.

In an opinion piece on this same platform, I argued for Cameroon to join ECOWAS in a bid to boost its economy and also to cement its West African identity. The fact that the producers of “L’axe Lourd” also decided to shoot a movie in Cameroon and base it in a West African country could also be a sign of their willingness to acknowledge Cameroon’s West African-ness.

In fact, in May 2016 while addressing business leaders at the Cameroon Investment Forum in Yaounde, president Biya noted that:

“…I am fond of saying that Cameroon, Africa in miniature, is not coming empty-handed to this give-and-take Forum. Indeed, it has abundant assets, hence its attractiveness.

The most populated country in the CEMAC zone sharing a more than 1500km-long border with Nigeria, Africa’s leading economy, Cameroon stands out thanks to its strategic position at the crossroads between West and Central Africa and at the intersection between the ECOWAS and CEMAC zones…”.

It is not clear why the producers of ‘L’axe Lourd’ chose to set their movie in a fictional West African country but it would be a case of wait-and-see when the movie is finally released.

Nkeng Stephens is a leading Cameroonian film director and has also directed music videos for leading Cameroonian musicians.

There is excitement as Cameroonians of all stripes look forward to see what the master storyteller has packaged this time for them.