Exposition: Tainted Canvas

Tainted Canvas

Tainted Canvas (2021) is the directorial debut of Segilola Ogidan, who also stars as the film’s protagonist Rayo. The film, a tough watch at times, discusses mental illness but, most pressingly, is an exploration into the effects of childhood trauma in adult life.

This is a deeply personal story for Ogidan, who shared that she herself had suffered sexual exploitation as a child in Nigeria. Ogidan divulged how, as an adult, she started speaking about these experiences “to friends who I grew up with or even people I’d just met” and realised that, despite “meeting an astounding >>

number of people who had experienced it”, it continues to be “a taboo subject. I knew right then that this was important for me to make it and get it out there in the best possible way I know, which is film.”

As the film begins, we are able to see the intense way in which Rayo is still affected by memories and nightmares of the sexual abuse that she faced as a child. Though the scenes weren’t overtly graphic, they were incredibly devastating, acted out brilliantly by the actress who plays young Rayo, Jemima Aderemi. The film firmly establishes that trauma

Segilola Ogidan and Efa Iwara

experienced as a child, especially sexual trauma, doesn’t simply end once you become an adult, but instead stays with you throughout your adult life, seeping into everyday things like dating. For example, Rayo’s trauma seems to directly impact her struggle to connect romantically with men. However, Ogidan has also explained that most of the romantic scenes were cut from the script in order to remove the insinuation that Rayo’s healing came as a result of her romantic relationships. Instead, Ogidan wanted the focus of the film to be on the power of Rayo’s inner

healing “having to deal with her demons by herself, finding the ability to do that and coming out victorious, healed or at least with a positive outlook on life.” This is, at the crux of it, what Tainted Canvas is about – it is a showcase of the long-lasting effects of childhood sexual abuse and a message to survivors that it is possible to heal eventually. Though the journey to healing isn’t necessarily as convincingly depicted as the effects of trauma, one thing the film does really well is highlight how cycles of trauma can infiltrate families. Over the course of the film, it becomes clear, for example, that Rayo’s treatment by

Jemima Aderemi and Kehinde Bankole

her mother, Rose, is directly related to Rose’s own mother-daughter relationship. Rose and Rayo’s relationship is a powerful reminder of how we are all products of our parents’ upbringing and how this generational trauma can continue to be inherited unless someone breaks the cycle. Tainted Canvas isn’t perfect – it maybe tries to do too much in too short a run time. Nevertheless, it broaches a lot of important topics that, as Ogidan says, aren’t spoken about nearly enough, so for that reason alone it is worth watching. Louise Giadom n