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Reply With QuoteNollywood, the Nigerian movie industry, is facing a myriad of problems serious enough to lead to its total collapse in few years from now
Jimoh Aliu is a well known actor and producer. He is one of the founders of the Nigerian Motion Picture Industry popularly called Nollywood. He started with television plays in the late 1960s. He continued producing television plays until the early 1990s when he produced his movies on VHS format for export to Europe. In order to lift the industry to laudable heights, he established National Association of Theatre Arts Practitioners, NANTAP.
Shortly after, Aliu quit the association in anger. He equally quit the profession. His anger stems from the mediocrity and jealousy he encountered after establishing NANTAP. “There were certain individuals who felt threatened by my profile,” Aliu said. He said they were unwilling to accept the leadership he was willing to offer. His vision was for NANTAP to be the umbrella body of all Nollywood actors irrespective of ethnicity. He wanted the body to meet regularly to deliberate on pertinent issues relating to the growth of the industry. But that did not materialise because his efforts were rebuffed and the organisation was eventually hijacked. “But I knew a time would come when the industry’s new practitioners would wish they had listened to veterans like me,” Aliu said, adding, “Now it has arrived. If they had listened earlier, Nollywood would not be in disarray as it is today.”
Aliu is right. Today, Nollywood is in decline. The industry now records lower volume of production and sales. Poor distribution and low volume of sales are associated with the new distribution guidelines introduced by the National Film and Video Censors’ Board, NFVCB, which led to the licensing of some unqualified outfits as Nollywood distributors. The result is that Nollywood is gradually dying and actors, producers, marketers and distributors in Nollywood are accusing the regulator of killing Nollywood by its new policy.
Apart from their grouse with NFVCB, conflict within Nollywood is threatening the cohesion in the industry. This disunity prevents it from acting as one. Newswatch investigation also reveals that Nollywood’s declining fortunes is also a fall-out of the success of the country’s war against money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
At the peak of its success, Nollywood benefited immensely from funds provided by some of the country’s drug barons. Some of the barons who wanted viable businesses to invest idle funds from their illegal trade found Nollywood a good field. But this trend soon got to the ears of the EFCC which began stringent monitoring of Nollywood.
At a point, some Nollywood stars became drug couriers. Because of their celebrity status, they often escaped airport screenings. These led to high level of success for the drug barons. But the arrest of Hassanat Akinwande Taiwo, popularly called Yetunde Wunmi, and Uche Odoputa caused drug law enforcement authorities to scrutinise such celebrities more closely when they are travelling out of the country. A combination of all these affected negatively the amount of funds available for funding Nollywood. The strict monitoring of sources of Nollywood funding turned it into an unsafe investment zone for those with the money.
There was also the directive from the Nigeria Intelligence Financial Unit, NIFU, to banks mandating them to report all their domiciliary account transactions exceeding $10,000 dollars, and local accounts exceeding a million naira for individuals and five million naira for corporate bodies. This also adversely affected the fortunes for Nollywood. As a result, fewer movies were being produced because the money launderers, who are the main financiers, found it difficult to launder their funds. From producing 150 movies weekly, production slowed to approximately 25 each week. Revenue also dwindled. Nollywood, the third-largest film industry in the world, was initially generating $286 million annually.
Leke Alder, chief executive officer, CEO, of Alder Consulting, provided the statistics. “The revenue generated by sales and rentals of movies in Lagos State is N804 million per week,” or N33.5 billion per annum. Demand for broadcast content in Nigeria averages 836,580 hours of programming per year valued at N250 billion. Uptake of compact discs, CDs, at Alaba International Market, Lagos alone was almost 700,000 discs per day. “The market potential of the movie industry in Nigeria relative to the size of each state’s economy is at least N522 billion per annum.” Last year, this figure dropped to N100 million.
Revenue also plummeted because many Nollywood patrons were no longer buying the movies since they could watch them for free on television. In the South-West, Nigerian television stations like AIT, MBI, MITV, LTV 8, Silverbird and Galaxy, beam virtually all Nollywood movies without paying royalties to the producers. Multichoice, a cable television, even established Africa Magic, a cable channel ostensibly to showcase African movies. About 95 percent of its movie programmes are Nollywood.
Nollywood movie sales began to drop two years after the advent of Africa Magic. According to Amaka Igwe, a prominent Nollywood director, home video viewing centres sprang up in places like Aba, Onitsha, Enugu and Warri. At these places, people pay a fee to watch Nollywood movies. Gradually, movie watchers stopped buying or renting Nollywood movies. Today, they rarely spend money on Nollywood movies.
By Africa Magic’s fifth anniversary, sales of Nollywood’s English movies had crashed. Yoruba speaking Nollywood movies, which the channel shows only at weekends, are still doing well. Yoruba movies are selling far more than the English ones now, especially overseas. Bukky Somefun, a regular Nollywood movie follower in Nigeria, said she rarely rents or buys movies now since she can watch several of them daily for free. Sound Image, a Nollywood movies’ sales outfit in London, confirmed that Nollywood’s English movie sales have dropped. The ratio of English movies sold by the outfit is 1:2 in favour of Yoruba movies.
But, Multichoice does not think it is doing any harm. Joseph Hundah, managing director, Multichoice Media, argued that the channel symbolises growth and action. “Africa Magic is the very first channel of its kind anywhere on the continent and it has proven, everyday since it began, that African audience embraces African stories.” He also believes that Africa Magic serves a good objective by putting Nollywood stars on the world map. In other words, it is doing Nollywood a favour.
Multichoice, buoyed by the success of Africa Magic, launched Africa Magic Plus. Multichoice said this was done “to partner with producers in eastern and southern Africa and to offer an additional Africa focused channel.” In Western countries, specific terms of agreement were agreed upon.
Clarion Chukwura, an actress of more than two decades, said the bane of the Nigerian movie industry is tribalism. Tribalism has prevented Nollywood from having a uniform guild to advance its cause. The Actors’ Guild of Nigeria, AGN, is basically the actors’ guild for English Nollywood movies while Association of Nigeria Theatre Arts Practitioners, ANTP, is the guild for Yoruba movies. “It shouldn’t be that way. Everywhere in the world, we have one guild for all movie screen actors. AGN and ANTP are part of the problems because they are associations formed along tribal lines,” Chukwurah said, adding: “There should be one actors’ union. What we have right now is some people (English movies actors) claiming they are Nollywood while the other (Yoruba movies actors) are not. I am a part of the two and that is why I can speak for the two. The structure we have on ground is no structure.”
But Jide Kosoko, an actor and chairman, ANTP, disagreed with Chukwurah. He said the Yoruba speaking part of the industry has unsuccessfully tried many times to integrate the actors guild in Nigeria into one. This failed because the English speaking part of Nollywood frustrated all the efforts for fear of domination by the Yoruba actors because the industry was pioneered by the Yoruba. He blamed the division on English speaking movies actors who are mainly Igbo for not acknowledging the fact that Nollywood was pioneered by Yoruba producers and actors. He said the Yoruba speaking actors had many times, featured many Igbo actors in the past but the English chapter of Nollywood had not done so for Yoruba actors. The few that were cast regularly before in English speaking movies are no longer featured. “The federal government must stop referring to the industry as Nollywood if the good pioneering efforts of Ola Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Ade Love, Wole Soyinka, Alade Aromire and others are not appreciated,” Kosoko said. Newswatch’s attempt to get the reaction of Ejike Asiegbu, AGN president, was futile.
Apart from the cracks within the two sectors, the Yoruba and English segments of Nollywood have divisions within their ranks also. There is a lot of pettiness in both arms of Nollywood. Women quarrel over seniority and some older female actresses insist that newcomers address them as “aunties.” This, sources say, is an unwritten law in Nollywood and those who fail to obey get frustrated, no matter how talented they may be. Aisha Abimbola is a victim of this unwritten law in Nollywood.
The celebrated suspension of some star actors and actresses adversely affected the fortunes of the industry. Some of those affected are Stella Damasus-Aboderin, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Genevieve Nnaji, Rita Dominic, Emeka Ike, Ramsey Nouah jnr, Ini Edo-Ehigwina among others. The action which was taken by marketers to checkmate the excesses of Nollywood star actors especially, the high prices they were charging, caused a major friction in the industry. The ban threw up a number of younger new actors but it caused a major lull in patronage in and outside Nigeria for Nollywood. It also caused a lot of disharmony between the affected actors and the preferred ones on one hand and between the marketers who took the action and the banned actors. A source told Newswatch that the suspension taught the affected actors the good lesson of finding something else to do in addition to acting and to fall back on in case of another suspension. These, the source said, were responsible for the decision of many of them to try professional singing in order to have a fallback position.
One major problem that Nollywood actors face is that they do not have an umbrella union that would protect the interests of members. What they have now are guilds. Members said its leaders have used the guild to cater for their personal rather than collective interest. The formation of a strong union, the source said, would have helped to protect the actors against high-handedness on the part of the marketers such as it happened during the ban.
Marketers play a key role in the birth of Nollywood. Before funds from other sources like drugs started coming into Nollywood, they were the major financiers. Because they were strictly businessmen, they made sure they funded only movies they were sure would become commercial successes. The desire for this got them directly involved in production of movies. Some virtually dictated to their producers what they wanted. That direct involvement affected professionalisation and specialisation in the industry. “In Nollywood, the marketer is also the producer, casting director and at times, the director,” said a source who also argued that things could only change in favour of professionalisation if all Nollywood actors form a strong union to advance their cause.
But sources told Newswatch that the guilds presidents do not want the formation of such a union because the guilds as presently constituted are run as their personal empires. “The formation of Actors union means Asiegbu and Kosoko would not have bodies to lord themselves over. That would mean professionals like Dejumo Lewis or Olu Jacobs, could become president of the union and they do not want that,” Chukwurah said.
Chukwurah is very unhappy about the downturn in Nollywood. She was so concerned that she wrote leading stakeholders in the industry suggesting the way out but nobody acted on her suggestions. “Maybe the reason they backed off is because they do not want problems with Ejike or Kosoko,” she said.
Formation of a union would also put the industry at loggerheads with Emeka Mba who is the director-general of Nigeria Film and Video Censors Board, NFVCB. Some stakeholders in the industry opposed his appointment to the position because they say he does not know much about the industry. He is said to be a political appointee with no pedigree in film production. “He does not know the history of this industry. The industry should be run by people who have a stake in it,” Chukwurah said.
Mba’s alleged unsuitability to head NFVCB is said to be the main reason why there is a decline in Nollywood now. He was said to have taken some actions which, instead of boosting the fortunes of the industry, are crippling it. Firstly, Nollywood’s practitioners feel he should have done more to check the excesses of Multichoice, a pay-per-view satellite television. Multichoice floated Africa Magic, a movie subscription channel originally designed to beam African movies. But 90 percent of its content comprises Nollywood movies. Initially, no royalties were paid. But the controversy raged over this development, the cable channel started paying $1000 for each movie shown on its channel. “What Nollywood movie was produced with $1,000 dollars? With $1,000 African Magic shows your movie for, at least, 25 times. That is a quarter of my earning,” Chukwurah said.
Poor sales has had negative effect on Nollywood actors’ fees. During its earliest days, actors like Bob-Manuel Udokwu and others were paid a thousand naira to act. But before Africa Magic arrived on the scene, the fees rose significantly. Some actors were earning one million naira or N800,000 per movie, but they earn far less now. Those that were earning N500,000 now earn N150,000. That is how bad things have become.
The reduction in actors’ fees led many Nollywood actors to turn to other things for survival like singing and forming charitable organisations. Some have even tried politics. Jim Iyke, a popular Nollywood actor now runs a charitable organisation. He is also due to release a musical album soon. Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and Stella Damasus-Aboderin are into the music career in addition to owning charitable organisations.
Jalade-Ekeinde said she is still busy in the movie field despite having careers outside Nollywood. She said she has not been very visible in Nollywood recently because she has been pre-occupied with directing her upcoming soap opera. “I have not left the industry. For a while I had not seen good movies to shoot, the kind of movies I wanted to shoot. So since August last year, I have stopped doing regular movies. If the movie is not shot in High Definition, HD, format, I am not going to agree to act in it,” she said.
Apart from that, Jalade-Ekeinde who is on her way to shooting a movie in Washington DC, also spoke of new conditions that must be met before she can accept a role. Her remuneration must not be below N1.5 million and the budget for the movie has to be on a particular high standard with a good structure before she can accept to play a role. To her, it does not matter if marketers or producers are lamenting about a credit crunch in the industry. She believes her new conditions are to ensure that she is beyond the reach of amateurs. “Everybody shouldn’t be able to afford me, I’m not for everybody,” she said.
Zack Orji, former president of AGN, who spoke to Newswatch from Awka, where he is currently on location, agreed that the movie industry is in a bad shape. However, activities have not grinded to a halt because of that. “I’ve been working. I have another project coming up in Abraka and Kano, one of which I will be producing. But the truth is that there’s a certain lull in the industry. You will find that in every industry, there is crisis here and there. However, people are still working,” he said.
Ifeanyi Ekeh of Royal Feature Production, believes that “quality of films began to drop when non-professionals ventured into film making without the requisite skills.” This suggests, as many observers had feared, that the industry has since become an all comers affair, and had led to many non-standard films being produced on a regular basis, with scant regard to quality.
Another case of Nollywood’s practitioners against Mba is over the problems associated with his licensing strategy. Mba conceived the idea that piracy can be checked by licensing only those who are qualified to be distributors. So, some movie distributors were licensed as the only legitimate distribution channels of Nollywood movies. Some of these are Nu Metro and Nollywood Box Office.
But, the NFVCB’s new distribution framework was clouded by controversy. Some novices were allegedly licensed at the expense of experienced hands. Even then, an approximate 100 distributors were licensed which, according to Nollywood distributors, is inadequate.
Reacting, Bose Ojetokun, deputy director, NFVCB, said such claims are propaganda. She said NFVCB ensured it got input and approval of all Nollywood stakeholders before it commenced the new distribution policy. She admitted that though there are problem areas in the new distribution policy, efforts were being made to smoothen them. “I will be surprised to hear such complaints,” she said.
Still the complaints have not died down. Andy Ikechukwu Nnadi, popularly called Andy Best, is a Nollywood producer and marketer of more than 200 Nollywood movies since the early 1990s. But under the new distribution framework, he was not licensed. “A large number of those that were licensed are inexperienced which explains why they are not marketing Nollywood movies effectively. Some are even actors,” he said. Tested hands like him are incapable of helping out because they were not licensed.
To prove this point, an official of Nollywood Box Office, said his outfit’s sales of Nollywood movies plummeted because patrons of Nollywood movies rarely buy movies. Rather, they rent. The few ones that opt to buy do so from smaller movie outfits because it is cheaper there.
Gab Okoye, a movie distributor known in Nollywood as Gabosky, was also one of those that supported the new distribution framework initially. But he had a change of heart when he discovered that the programme lacked direction. “You cannot say you want to create a few mega distributors to service about 20, 30, 50 community distributors and you end up creating 100 distributors that are even worse than what we had at the beginning,” he said.
Actors were licensed to operate whereas veteran marketers, the likes of Andy Best and Ossy Affasson were not registered. Okoye said the situation became laughable because there was no genuine intention, no direction, and no commitment.
Most of those who got the distributors’ licences do not have the financial capacity to utilise the licence effectively. The banks were initially eager to help because they thought that only a few distributors would be licensed, but when they realised that the number was up to 100, they withdrew. As a result, many licensed distributors including Okoye do not have the financial backing to effectively distribute according to the new framework.
Invariably, the poor distribution network led to poor sales of many Nollywood productions. Some producers have become bankrupt because of their inability to recoup their investments in the industry. This contributed to the decline in Nollywood’s fortunes. “People cannot buy what they cannot see. And if they do not buy, distributors do not make profit and if we do not, the producers and actors cannot get huge returns…,” Nnadi said. As a result, fewer Nollywood home videos were produced in the past two years.
Teco Benson, a director of mainly Nollywood action movies, said though work is on-going in Nollywood , it is retrogressing. This is because it is not attempting to catch up with Hollywood. “Hollywood is over-exaggerated. This is what Slumdog Millionaire exposed this year,” he said. Slumdog Millionaire is a low-budget movie shot on location in India. Yet, it beat other big budget movies to win eight Academy Awards in 2009.
Benson said this development shows that the location and skin colour is immaterial to getting to the height of movie world’s global reckoning if the other elements like script, acting and technology are the best. That is what Nollywood should aspire to because the technology used by Hollywood is available to the industry if it aspires to move higher. “My last movie was done on 35mm. Next to that is High Definition which is virtually the future of film in the world in the next five years. George Lucas shot on HD, Steven Spielberg is contemplating making his film on HD. Nollywood should shun mediocrity and do likewise,” he said. This would then make NFVCB’s job easier.
Tony Abulu is a Nollywood practitioner based in United States. Crazy Like a Fox, his movie, released in 2008, won global recognition by being one of the official selections for the American Black Film festival in 2008 and has been nominated for several awards as well. He also produced Back to Africa, which he said was “the first Nigerian movie anyone ever saw in the United States.”
Before the distribution problem degenerated, Abulu suggested ways to achieve effective results but was rebuffed by some practitioners in the industry. In the late 1990s, he noticed that a few Senegalese and Malian traders were beginning to sell pirated copies of Nigerian movies in the United States. So, he established the Film Makers Association of Nigeria, FAN, comprising Bethel Agumoh, Rabiu Mohammed, Caroline Okoli and himself in United States. As FAN’s president, Abulu was able to convince 70 percent of distributors of pirated Nollywood movies in the United States to become legitimate distributors of Nigerian films.
They then made representation to stakeholders in Nigeria that Nollywood would be jeopardised if they do not allow FAN to legitimise the distribution of original Nigerian movies in the United States. This is because Nigerian producers would not be able to get adequate remuneration for the movies sold in the United States. When FAN approached Nigeria base producers, they were unco-operative.
So, there was a vacuum in distribution of Nollywood movies overseas which the Chinese have filled. As much as 50 movies are being compressed illegally into one DVD and are being sold worldwide. Ninety-five percent of Nollywood movies sold outside the shores of the country are pirated. Within the country, more than 60 percent are pirated.
Chinedu Nwani, of Get-Rich Productions Limited, a Lagos based movie marketer in Alaba international market, is a victim of the activities of the pirates. Nwani said many indigenous movie marketers like him were operating at a loss because patrons prefer to buy the low cost DVDs comprising 24 or 48 films in one disc than the original ones. The DVDs cost N500 each and could have 45-50 movies while the original VCD comprising just one movie costs N350.
Afam Vincent Nduka, who has produced movies like Saved, Weeping Tiger, Lethal Woman, Oga and His Boys among others, suggested that the pirates be legalised and integrated into movie distribution networks. His reasoning is based on the fact that they have well established sales networks which permeate all segments of the society down to the grassroots. “In the past when musicians released their songs and pirates at Alaba compiled them into selections, they were arrested. But now, musicians beg them to put their musics in musical selections because they are so good in distribution,” he said.
Patience Ozokwor, a popular Nollywood actress, suggested that “video shop owners be made to buy rental copies at special rates since they are using it for rental purposes… And there should be clear monitoring of their activities so that whoever does not have a rental copy in his shelve, would be asked to explain why.” Once government is able to implement this, it will go a long way in solving the problems being experienced in the industry, she said. But, “implementation is the problem.”
Rob Emeka Eze, managing director, Reemmy Jes Nigeria Limited and chairman, Onitsha Film Video Producers/Marketers Association of Nigeria, admitted that the industry had been in a “coma.” But he said that Nollywood will bounce back to its former status once the NFVCB and the Copyright Commission do their work well in terms of enforcing copyright laws and punishing pirates.
Ofia Afuluagu Mbaka, an actor and chairman AGN, Enugu Chapter, urged the government to come out hard on pirates. “All talks about piracy won’t make sense if the relevant authorities lack the will to do what is right. If the federal government wants to help this industry it should enact a law spelling out the penalties for offenders. By the time people begin to go to jail without option of fine for piracy, people will be discouraged.”
But, the Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, said it has made great progress in tackling piracy in Nigeria. Adebambo Adewopo, director-general, NCC, listed the achievement of the commission in fighting piracy in Nollywood under the Strategic Action Against Piracy, STRAP initiative. He said two piracy outfits, namely Magnet Integrated Ventures Company, Ajah and Akina Music International Company Limited Ikeja, both in Lagos, were raided and sealed up for infringement of the copyright laws. A total of 19,312,000 seizure of pirated works worth N3.03 billion were also made recently while about 325 outlets were shut during 85 anti-piracy raids. More than two billion naira worth of impounded pirated products have been destroyed by burning.
Offenders are also being prosecuted. More than 60 different cases of copyright violation are currently being prosecuted in Federal High Courts nationwide. A total of 386 outlets dealing in copyright protected works were inspected. Adewopo said revitalisation of Copyright Notification Scheme was set rolling to facilitate the establishment of data bank on authors and their works. “Perhaps, one of the major achievements of the agency was the United States’ delisting of Nigeria from special 301 lists,” he said. Three hundred and one list of countries are countries blacklisted by the American government for the rising Incidence of Intellectual Property thefts referred to as piracy and counterfeiting.
Investment in the movie industry is not attractive any longer because of piracy. The evidence of this is shown at 51, Iweka Road, the heart of the commercial city of Onitsha, which is a symbol of the movie industry in eastern Nigeria. Apart from being a popular electronics market, Iweka Road was known as wholesale and retail outlet of Nigerian movies. Five years ago, for instance, people from Onitsha and beyond, besieged many shops in Iweka Road to buy Nigerian movies. It was at the height of what can be regarded as the “boom time” for the popular Nigerian film industry called Nollywood.
Today, it is a different story. Iweka Road is no longer the busy centre it used to be. No frenetic pace of activities are noticeable in the place any longer. Apart from the fact, that other electronics markets have been created in Onitsha town, as a way to decongest the place, many marketers of Nigerian home videos in Onitsha, whether in Iweka Road, Uga or Niger bridge areas of the town, complain that the Nigerian film industry has virtually collapsed, and that unless something drastic was done, and quickly too, to revive it, the industry might just die a premature death.
Chezona Felix Okeke, a movie marketer based in Onitsha, supports Oguno’s view. He told Newswatch that piracy is the main problem facing the Nigerian movie industry. He appealed to the relevant Nigerian authorities to come to the aid of movie producers. “We are no longer doing well, simple. We are only living on past glory,” he said.
Five years ago, sales were high and before movies were released into the market, the marketers could make sales projections. “But it’s a different story today. Whereas we sold between 50,000 to 100,000 thousand copies per month, one would count himself lucky if he is able to sell up to 10,000 copies a month now,” he said.
According to Okeke, the dismal sales which many marketers now experience has also led to a drop in standard of quality of films on the market since many financiers are afraid to invest their money in movies, thus leading to low budget films. “Talking about standard, the issue is that when you’ve spent so much to produce a movie, and it doesn’t sell, you would not want a repeat next time and that could lead to taking measures that might impact on quality, since no one wants to spend money foolishly.”
The federal government has not been able to actualise concrete measures to help Nollywood. Efforts of state governments like Cross River with its film sets at Tinapa and that of Lagos with its proposed film village at Badagry, have not yielded much fruits. The federal government has been unable to fund Nollywood. Last December, the attempts of Ken Olukoya, Berdand Rah and Dele Ajakaye, based in England, to get Nigerians in Diaspora to contribute to a Nigerian Film Fund was stopped by NFC. The fund was aimed at helping Nigerian producers get funding to produce quality movies. But, NFC issued a disclaimer to the project. Despite the organisers’ insistence that the Nigeria Film Fund was registered in the UK with Reg. number 06707434, NFC was unconvinced. Ajakaye was involved in the making of films such as Flesh and Blood, Shame, Blood Money and Igodo.
Beyond these issues, the industry has to embrace originality. Mbaka said that the problem of recycling stories which is noticeable in the industry, could be minimised once stakeholders start attending conferences where they can deliberate and share ideas with colleagues. “Movie makers need to do a better job. They need to research well. Criticism is good because it helps to improve us, makes us see the bad aspect,” he said.
Lari Williams, a veteran actor who also teaches Theatre Arts at University of Lagos, UNILAG, and Lagos State University, LASU, said one of the main solutions to Nollywood’s problems is the establishment of stage acting. “Let’s build a solid stage and the industry will grow,” he said.
In the Hausa speaking movies popularly called Kannywood after Kano State, its hub, the slump is caused by religion. Okey Ogbu, chairman, AGN, Kano chapter, enjoins government and Nollywood’s practitioners to help combat the wave of Sharia censorship of Hausa movies in Kano. The state has formulated all manners of Sharia laws to hinder smooth production of Hausa movies. One of the requirements is that actors should register individually and not do so as a body under AGN. Normally, AGN, as the umbrella association, is required to register on the artistes’ behalf. The Kano censorship board makes this impossible because it has not registered AGN, Kano chapter itself.
The problems facing Nollywood was the reason for a Nollywood stakeholders’ retreat held recently. Dora Akunyili, the minister of information and communications, attended and advised participants on a way out. She advised Nollywood practitioners that the industry should first re-organise itself before the ministry can perform a regulatory job. The stakeholders want Akunyili to help re-position Nollywood. Their belief in Akunyili is based on her track records at National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC. “Akunyili can do that if she wants to do it and we are looking up to her to come and regulate the movie industry out of the doldrums it is in now,” Okoye said.
It is not a total tale of sorrow for Nollywood however. Some practitioners of the industry are still making Nollywood proud outside the shores of the country. Tunde Kelani, a Nigerian cinematographer, who was a crew member with late Hubert Ogunde, was honoured at the New York Film Festival two years ago. Arugba, his latest celluloid film, is being premiered across the globe.
Jeta Amata was honoured at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004. He has produced internationally acclaimed celluloid films like Amazing Grace and Mary Slessor. Also, Lancelot Imaseun, a Nollywood director, starred as himself a documentary entitled Nollywood Babylon at the 2009 Sundace Film Festival, SFF, in Utah, United States. This documentary made by Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal, two Canadians, showed Nigeria in a new light when premiered at the festival. Ebuwa, his current film, was premiered internationally in Toronto, Canada and would be premiered in Abuja, New York, Boston, Chicago and London, in March and April 2009. He believes that Nollywood will overcome its current setbacks. “Africa is an untapped market. When the mobile phone companies arrived in Africa, they made their projected profit for three years in six months. We could do the same thing with our movies,” he said.
Additional Reports by Anthony Akaeze, Rachel Ogbu, Augustine Adah and Ishaya Ibrahim
Originally Posted by takestyle
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