Sense and Screen From Hollywood
Written by Emma Okocha
2008 has flashed past and believe it or not, we are almost half way through. While the copyright battle bubbles in the Nollywood cauldron mixed in with the still constant scoops of “moving pictures” about Nigeria and Nigerians, a cross section of the known film festivals home and abroad have not brought about the expected boom.
But, we still have almost six months to go and many a festivals are yet to showcase their Nollywood wares. To be fair, not much was expected from the Hollywood Black film Festival that just concluded.
The connection between the ‘African in Africa’ stories and the Black experience still needs some tweaking and the “street side vulcanizing” may not be sufficient to make this a full-blown industry pipeline. Non-the less we won’t lose hope.
A couple of stories were in the works such as Mike Ajakwe’s ‘419’. The jury is still out on the full production since the journey from Script to Screen can be an apian way subject to tsunami-like surges of unforeseen obstacles.
With the right ingredients of violence, materialism and little sexy spice it may yet make it’s way to the open market of hungry eyes waiting to see what the Nollywood hype is all about.
Believe it or not the word is out that there is a land of utopian possibilities out there called Nollywood. Be it by the sometimes-brazen number of movies said to be made in a day in Nigeria, or the still surviving wild wild west industry of Nollywood movies slipping through customs all over the globe. The word is out and the world is beginning to take notice.
Don’t get me wrong the buzz is often blown by the inevitable face to face encounter with many of these “slip-through” moving pictures, opening the gateway for the usual conference panels on quality vs. quantity, standards, storyline, etc.
But while the sea of “expert” voices” spew forth miles of possibilities to better Nollywood, someone is busy pocketing the ‘loose change’ along the way.
Be it the hardworking practitioners of the Nollywood craft, home and abroad, the famed marketers, the conference organizers or the international duplication syndicate(s) which range from one man shows to network teams in many cases not even of Nigerian origin.
was stunned to hear that as far out as Suriname in the Caribbean some of our distant relatives of African decent can greet me “Kwenu” though never having met a Nigerian in their life due to the handiwork of some Sino-Asian contacts. The De-Nigerianization of Balogun and by extension the clothing industry may not be the only thing not being covered by Nollywood.
So this week we will be looking forward to the Nollywood Foundation Conference flying it’s way into Beverly Hills. The last three years has seen a steady growth of eager participants and long talk.
With the hope that the “Stake-Holders” (a la count Dracula) will not come with the garlic lased stand of “see what I can do”, but a genuine plan to take advantage of a world ready to join a new and exciting story telling pipeline called Nollywood, I’ll be there to tell you the story.
For Sense and Screen from Hollywood,
Chao from Kani Omo.
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