Meet Elizabeth Ayodele of Orange Sky Grace Films in Tempe

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Ayodele.

Elizabeth, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I began making narrative films in 2014, although I had been writing and planning to sell screenplays for some time before that. I had taken narrative writing classes in college even though I majored in economics. After completing college I worked in my field of study but remained involved in creative outlets and worked on scripts and attended spoken word and music open mics pretty regularly. I think it just didn’t feel practical to begin taking my creative work more seriously for awhile. In 2014 I finally decided to put team a together and make a film. We created a short film called “Fifteen Days” about an experimental foray to another planet after the earth had become inhabitable. It was a fun and rewarding experience so I summoned the courage to continue making my own projects. In 2018 I wrote and directed a one-hour drama called Orange Sky Grace starring some local acting talents and myself and submitted the film to various festivals. We ended up getting a number of awards and finalist placements at festivals including Nevada International Film Festival, Davis Greater Bay Area International Film Festival, Utah Film Festival & Awards and Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival, to name a few. Next I knew I had to make another film and began preparing for that in early 2019. In Spring 2019 I wrote another script based on a dystopian premise with a virus epidemic at the center of the story. I chose this premise probably because I knew I would have access to the proper locations to execute the story. My parents have been running a local nursing school for over a decade called Star Canyon School of Nursing in north/central Phoenix so I knew I would have access to their facilities to set up labs and clinical environments for the story. We are almost finished with that project now and I am very excited to have it completed and be able to share it with the world. I’m also hoping it inspires hope and courage that we will persevere even during these times.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I cannot say that it has been a smooth road, it’s undoubtedly included challenges but I would say it’s been a rewarding road and that things have worked out better than I expected in a lot of circumstances. As a Christian, I think we often underestimate God or think he lives in our box of what we think is realistic or how far we can see. Still, I think God has an unimaginably great vision a lot of times and it’s better for us to trust, follow and rely on Him than to trust our perceived limitations.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
So I am in the business of making narrative films that have a Christian/faith-inspired influence. So far, I am proud of reaching people with a message of faith and hope, especially at a time when it’s easy to begin to feel faithless and hopeless. I think directing people toward faith in God is helpful in these times.

What were you like growing up?
I was born in Ibadan, Nigeria in West Africa and brought to the US by my parents around 11 years old. I was pretty academic as a lot of Nigerian and Nigerian-American kids are raised to be. I wanted to get good grades and get into a good college etc. In high school, I got involved in our creative writing club and I was president of that group and we wrote plays and entered them in contests and shared poetry, etc. I was also involved in the Teen Court program which allowed us to work on real cases involving our peer group and argue as “attorneys” in front of a local judge. I was once featured in Tempe Tribune for that. I also participated in sports – soccer and cross-country running primarily. I played clarinet in the band too. I was always really interested in stories. I would write stories to share with friends for fun sometimes to get a laugh out of them or see what they thought.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.orangeskygrace.com; www.theliftingmovie.com
• Phone: 6022147830
• Email: elizabeth.ayodele@gmail.com
• Instagram: @liftingfilm
• Facebook: @orangeskygracefilms