TIPTOPSTARS

Between 2005 and 2013 (may fall short of exactitude), Solange Yijika’s face did justice to Cameroonian movies. Not only was this actress every producer’s dream, but she was also the first to appear on their casting sheet. It was easily so, thanks to her irresistible performance on set. Yijika possessed a firm grip of her script and would hold her directors spellbound upon delivery. “She makes me eager to jump on set and do this thing,” an aspiring onlooker had mentioned on the set of her movies in 2007.

Yijika had been discovered at the rehearsals of TRIALS OF PASSION II, a series on CRTV. That was in 2004. The film was later shot in 2005 and projected either that year or in 2006. Yijika shined in it and other movies in which she starred in the years that followed.

Disturbingly, other imperatives have always whisked the talented actress off the movie set. Even when Yijika has made frantic efforts to be around, it has clearly been a challenge. This long absence of the lead in many movies of yesteryears, including Neba Lawrence’s LAND OF SHADOWS (2008) and TROUBLED KINGDOM (2012), respectively produced by Agbor Gilbert Ebot and Fred Keyanti, has costed the industry a new generation of movie lovers who have little or no knowledge about the one-time screen goddess.

But hey, Yijika is re-emerging. She is back on Neba Lawrence’s set - the director with whom the actress has done the highest number of her jobs. “I saw that coming,” one Yijika fan commented, reacting to the casting of the actress in Neba’s upcoming AGAINST THE WIND, set to be filmed. “This had taken too long to come, but I’m glad and excited that Lawrence brought my favorite back on set.”

Scores of other movie lovers would react in like manner. The actress and her performance had been missed, especially during these years of digital wonders in film production, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix exultation. Yijika and other names of yesteryears will be rolled on the credits of AGAINST THE WIND, including Yimbu Emmanuel, Moma Pascal aka Bob, Quinta Eyong Ashu and Magdaleine Agbor.

Solange Yijika starred in other movies such as MARK OF THE ABSOLUTE (2007), produced and directed by Asaba Ferdinand aka Penda, ROYAL DESTINY (2009), produced by Ayi Chatou Inoua and directed by Neba Lawrence, GREAT PAIN (2009), directed by Neba Lawrence, etc. Anxiety grows as the film community awaits this new movie.