By Miebi Senge
WITH total production of 850 titles, in 2003 alone, the Kano movie production mills place second in terms of indigenous films according to figures by the National Films and Video Censors Board, (NFVB). And this is not all there is about the home film industry in the ancient city of Kano, the big news is that unlike Lagos and Onitsha where traders hold sway, women hold the magic wand in this very religious climate.
The Hausa for film is ‘majigi’ a derivative from the English word, magic. Cinematic images were simply magical to the audience of Kano club of 1932 which had the privilege of watching the first film and so the coinage of the word majigi by the people.
According to Alhaji Abdulkareem Mohammed, 1st Vice Chairman, Motion Picture Council of Nigeria (MOPICON) and Managing Director, Moving Image Ltd, the introduction of film to this very traditional society was view with suspicion and raised religious issues.
“The arguments against it were: Is it religiously permissible to watch cinematic images? Is film a false image?.” Alhaji Mohammed noted that there were even rumours “cinemas might be showing the image of the Prophet (SAW).”
And like in the South, the Kano Home Video industry is devoid of any form of financial assistance from either the government or banks. It’s just a product of private enterprise and industry, using the abundant artistic talents of mainly unemployed, cheap youths and exploring production and post-production facilities of TV stations in the city.
With the Hausa language being spoken across the West African sub-region, films produced in Kano simply have a ready market of over 40 million people. “The Hausa Home Video took its roots from the activities of majigi, commercial cinema, drama groups, broadcast systems, literary movements and the like which were introduced to the Kano market in the 1980s,” said Mohammed.
The women and power of film production
In a society where women were basically confined to their homes and not to be seen with men in public, the women of Northern Nigerian saw the emergence of the Home Video phenomenon as a welcomed pastime and soon, they discovered it could also boost their power of freedom without annoying the religious purists.
With the first Hausa adaptation of a Chinese film, and Bakar Indiya, an adaptation of the Indian depiction of dance and songs, the local production mills moved up to its first real indigenous commercial movie, T urmin D anya in 1995.
Although Mohammed credited 1995 with the surge of Hausa language films in Kano, he stated that the first commercially successful film, Gimbiya 1 by Tumbin Giwa Drama Group grossing over 100,000 copies was released in 1994.
With the women confined to their homes, the new wave of films became their getaway and pastime. And that was how the Kano women were brought into the big picture and executive producers and financiers in the same way that the Idumota and Onitsha traders did for the Igbo and English language films of the Nollywood fame.
“Most of the Home Movie makers lack the capital to venture into the business as a result of the activities of the piracy, and with the women already enjoying the ‘freedom’ of watch majigi at the comfort of their homes, they became ready sponsors of most of these films,” Mohammed submitted.
However, he admitted that the Hausa language films had its controversies occasioned religious and cultural belief of the Muslim environment.
“Hausa films borrow extensively from Hindu masala film motifs that are mechanisms of the Hindu religious worship and thus run contrary to (the) Muslim-Huasa mindset and worldview.
That the participation of women in the industry has moral, social and religious implications, just as the dress mode of women on-screen and dances were unacceptable,” said Mohammed of a survey conducted among Kano Islamic Ulamahs, on Hausa movie in 2003.
Vanguard - Technology : In Kano, women take the lead in movie business