Film festivals are established for the promotion of the film industry which includes film tourism and movie merchandise and so much more in show business.
I have written on the huge film tourism and movie merchandise industry which have been very successful from Hollywood to Bollywood generating billions of dollars. And I have completed my feasibility studies for film tourism and movie merchandise for Ñollywood and the Nigerian film industry. The articles were published on Indiewire and Shadow and ACT since 2016. The articles have also been published on my Nigerians Report Online with the feature on the best film locations in Nigeria having over 5, 000 pageviews so far.
ZENITH International Film Festival will generate revenues from international film acquisition and distribution; film tourism, movie merchandise and from the hotels and guest houses for the participants and tourists.
The following selections of the merchandise which I have designed will create jobs and boost the creative economy of Nigeria.
My duly incorporated International Digital Post Network Limited, one of the most valuable digital media companies in Nigeria has international partnerships with Vuulr and Cinewav of Singapore for global film acquisition and distribution and for cinemas. And has international news media partnerships with PR Newswire, APO Group and a pending partnership with one of the biggest and largest broadcasting companies in the world which will be of immense benefit to our ZENITH International Film Festival in the world.
The merchandise of the ZENITH International Film Festival will be distributed locally by distributors in Nigeria and globally by Amazon.
The first designs of the T-shirts are already available on Instagram and Selar made to order on premium fabrics with or without the name of ZENITH International Film Festival with the beautiful logo. The logo is the symbol of the brand of ZENITH International Film Festival.
Film City means an integrated studio complex spread over a minimum of ten acres area that provides the physical facilities required for film making, including providing the flexibility to use the outdoor spaces for shooting purposes. It may be used as a popular tourist spot, recreation centre featuring many natural & artificial attractions including gardens, landscapes, amusement parks, statues, miniatures, streets, hotels, restaurants, Art Gallery, Museum, Hospital and shopping destinations. It may also include the development of peripheral infrastructure such as hotels, food & beverage establishments and retail areas including merchandise stalls to diversify the revenue composition;(xxxviii) “Food Processing Sector” means a sector comprising enterprises engaged in such manufacturing processes in which raw product of agriculture, animal husbandry or fisheries is transformed to make it edible for human consumption;(xxxix) “Gems & Jewellery Sector” means a sector comprising enterprises engaged in manufacturing of handmade or machine-made jewellery or other articles of gold, silver and other precious or base metal clad with precious metals or precious or semi-precious stones, or combinations of precious metal and precious or semi- precious stones or other materials;(xl) “Government” means Government of Rajasthan (xli) “Green Building Measures” means process or technology adopted to obtain green rating under Indian Green Building Council;(xlii) “Half-Way-Home” means the establishment registered with any Government Department for the purpose and having facilities of temporary stay for patients who have been discharged from a hospital but frequent consultancy of doctor is required for providing the patients with a safe shelter and rehabilitation;(xliii) “Handicraft Sector” means a sector comprising enterprises engaged in such manufacturing of items or products in which products are produced predominantly by hand with or without mechanical or electrical or other assistance and graced with visual appeal in the nature of ornamentation or in-lay work or some similar work lending it an element of artistic improvement. Such ornamentation must be of a substantial nature and not a mere pretence;(xliv) “Hilly Area” means an area which is notified as such by the State Government in the Finance Department by an order;(xlv) “Industrial Gases Sector” means a sector comprising enterprises engaged in manufacturing of gases for use in industries, excluding poisonous"
The Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has reiterated that the Lagos State government will build a large scale Africam film city of 100 hectares in Epe at the cost of US$100 million. He told the guests and the news media as he hosted the programme announcement for the 12th annual Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) on Thursday, October 5, 2023 at the Lagos State House on the Marina.
Ms. Chioma Ude, the Founder and Executive Director of AFRIFF commended the laudable visionary leadership of Governor Sanwo-Olu in the capacity development of Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.
Lagos is the capital of Nollywood and the entertainment industry in Nigeria, the biggest contributor to making Nollywood the largest film industry in Africa and among the fastest growing film industries in the world.
A report from PwC projects that the fast-growing industry will generate $14.8 billion revenue in 2025. The industry revenue is expected to rise from $7.7 billion in 2021 to $9 billion in 2022, $10.7 billion in 2023, $12.6 billion in 2024 and $14.8 billion in 2025. 85% of this revenue will be generated by access to the Internet.
According to PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook (2020-2024), Nigeria’s media and entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing creative industries in the world. It has the capability to become the country’s greatest export, with projected annual growth rate of 8.6% and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.3% from 2018-2023.
The Multixept Associates Limited is already building a film city in Epe.
US$100 Million Cannot Build a Film City
US$100 Million is a good investment to kickstart the building of a film city in Lagos by the Lagos State government. But that amount cannot even build a film village.
Lagos State government can start with a feasibility study and a budget of $5 Billion.
The best case study is Hollywood. And another good example is the Mumbai Film City; officially Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari, an integrated film studio complex situated near Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Goregaon East, Mumbai. It has several recording rooms, gardens, lakes, theatres and grounds that serve as the venue of many Bollywood and Marathi films. It was built in 1977 by the state government to provide facilities and concessions to the film industry.
Lagos State government can call the film city in Epe, EKO FILM CITY.
A film city must have a state of the art high tech film studios, world class hotels and cinemas.
One single world class hotel will cost more than S100 million.
The construction of the main access road will cost more than US$100 million for a 21st century film city.
It must be a smart city with IoT.
Private partnership investors will be required by the Lagos State government.
it is best to have a stakeholders forum with local and international investors in the multibillion dollar Nigerian Entertainment Industry, including banks, insurance companies, construction companies and realtors.
- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,
Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series,
the first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.
NOLLYWOOD: How Can A So Called Booming Film Industry Be Full of Hungry Actors and Directors?
Nollywood makes news headlines as a booming film industry, the second largest in the world after the Bollywood of India in the production of movies estimated to be worth over US$250 million annually which is less than the total budget of Avatar ($280 million), Tangled ($260 million), Spider-Man 3 ($258 million) or Pirates of the Caribbean sequels ($300 million).
See "Nollywood: The Nigerian Film Industry by Harvard Kennedy School on http://www.isc.hbs.edu/pdf/Student_Projects/Nigeria_Film_2008.pdf, which every literate person in Nigeria and others in the world should read
The realities in Nollywood are different from the booming headlines, because majority of the actors and directors are living in poverty from Lagos to Asaba.
Majority of the filmmakers are not well paid for their movies by the leading multinational cable TV network, MultiChoice Nigeria of the MultiChoice Group and many of them just wanted to have their movies on the DStv Channels of MultiChoice such as the Africa Magic for the publicity. Then only few of them smiled to the bank from the box office revenues of their movies distributed and exhibited by local film distributors and cinemas. The cinemas have not been making enough for a so called booming film industry without a film market. The highest grossing Nollywood movie from the box office in Nigeria, Funke Akindele- Bello's "Ọmọ́ Ghetto, The Saga" made less than N700 million which is not even up to the monthly incomes of the co-CEOs of Netflix, Reed Hastings who earns more than $40.8 million annually and Ted Sarandos who earns more than $38.2 million annually.
So, Nollywood is still far from the news headlines of a booming film industry.
Nollywood Still Missing at the Cannes Film Festival
30 years since the production of the blockbuster home video, "Living in Bondage" in 1992 and 20 years after the New York Times coined the word #Nollywood in 2002 for the phenomenal guerilla film industry in Nigeria with over 2000 movies produced annually and rated as the second largest film industry in the world after the #Bollywood of India and ahead of #Hollywood of America, no Nollywood movie has ever been chosen for the Official Selections of the Cannes Film Festival when filmmakers from other African countries have competed with the best for the highly coveted Palme d'Or and have won it a couple of times.
Morocco, Senegal, Ghana and Mali are among the countries with films in the Official Selection of the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival beginning on Tuesday, 17 May and ending on Saturday, 28 May.
While, the ambitious filmmakers in the world are going to be in competition for the highly coveted Palme d'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Nigerian filmmakers are hyping themselves on Instagram and competing for bragging rights in Nollywood.
Nollywood filmmakers are lagging behind in the biggest competitions in the global film industry. That is why none of them has qualified for the Official Selections of the Cannes Film Festival and nominations for the Academy Awards.
India will be the official ‘Country of Honour’ at the upcoming Marche’s Du Film which will be organized alongside the Cannes Film Festival 2022 in France. And this is the first time that such honour has been bestowed on any country.
Nollywood, where art thou?
- By EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima, The Publisher/Editor, NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series, the first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.
Avanti Arts P Ltd and Prajakta Films ‘ RED starring KRUSHNA ABHISHEK, PAYAL GHOSH, ABHIJIT SHWETCHANDRA, KANCHAN BHOR and above all SHAKTI KAPOOR is directed by ASHOK TYAGI and produced by RAJEEV CHAUDHARI and REKHA SURENDRA JAGTAP and is co – produced by JAGANNATH WAGHMARE and CHANDRAKANT PAWAR.
RED is a very sensational and emotional thriller. The film with music by HRIJU ROY, thrills by PAPPU VERMA and cinematography by AKRAM KHAN.
The story revolves around a college girl, played by Ghosh, who then transcends into a housewife and then an escort. The character has a remarkable dramatic arc one that has challenged Ghosh’s range as an actor. A source revealed, “Payal has left no stone unturned during her preparation for the character and she has worked very hard on making each part starkly different than the other.”
Contact:
Ashok Tyagi, Secretary General - ICMEI FC 14/15 Film City , Sector 16 A , Noida. UP India Phone Office : +91- 120-4831143/90 Mob : +91-9560454915 www.icmei.in
Why #Bollywood and #Nollywood Have Not Won the #Oscar for the Best International Feature Film
#Oscars #academyawards #movies
In nearly 75 years, the Oscar for best international film has only gone to an African production three times and a Bollywood production has never won. Europe dominates the category. Why?
Bollywood also snubbed by Hollywood
Half of the Asian-winning films are Japanese productions. Despite the size of Bollywood's film industry, India has never won the best international film award.
Another reason is the lack of financial means to promote Indian films to the Academy, says Namrata Joshi, an Indian film critic and author who has served on international film festivals juries in Toronto, Moscow and Cluj.
Even though Nigeria's internationally renowned Nollywood industry produces around 2,500 films a year, it hasn't won a single foreign film Academy Award.
Nollywood productions often do not meet the technical requirements of a cinema film since the focus is on home television. According to Ayorinde, streaming services like Netflix could change the situation significantly. Netflix is raising the bar, he says, by requiring cinematic standards even for films made for home viewing.
The trailer of "The American King", a new Hollywood and Nollywood comedy showing in selected cinemas in Nigeria.
Popular NIgerian actress, Shan George in front of Genesis Cinemas in Asaba, Delta State, NIgeria.
Cinemas in Nigeria are losing millions of dollars, because of poor marketing and publicity.
Nigerian film distributors and exhibitors don't seem to have any budget for the marketing and publicity of movies for cinemas in Nigeria rated as the second largest film industry in the world after India for the annual quantity of film productions.
The more marketing promotions for their movies, the more people that will be attracted to watch the movies and increase the population of moviegoers in Nigeria with more sales of tickets.
I have been increasing the attractions of cinemas by having screenings of documentary films for secondary schools at the cinemas since 2013 to date. The secondary school students who were teenagers seven years ago in 2013 are now grown-ups in their 20s and majority of them have graduated from tertiary institutions and gainfully employed with enough disposable incomes to pay for tickets for movies at the cinemas.
Many of them have commended me for their appreciation of the cinema culture.
Film distributors and exhibitors in the established film industries of Hollywood of the United States of America, Bollywood of India, China, UK and South Africa have budgets of millions of dollars for marketing and publicity for movies and their movies have been the highest grossing movies in the world which the NIgerian film industry has not achieved with the thousands of movies produced annually in Nollywood and Kannywood.
South Africa does not produce up to a quarter of the movies produced annually by NIgeria, but has produced the highest grossing movies in Africa with "District 9" grossing US$210.8 million in 200; followed by "The God's Must Be Crazy" - US$100 million; "Zambezia" - US$34.4 million; "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom" - US$27.3 million; "Khumba )" – $28.42 million (which the producers even reached out to me for the publicity in 2013) and the critically acclaimed "Tsotsi" - $12 million. It was the first African film to win the highly coveted Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (now Best International Feature Film) in 2006.
No NIgerian movie has made up to US$3 million from the box office.
The ready made common reason would be that South Africa has hundreds of cinemas whereas NIgeria has less than 100 cinemas. But the 100 cinemas with about 220 screens can make up to US$3 million monthly with proper marketing and publicity for movies.
The Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN) reported that cinemas in Nigeria made N301.48 million from tickets sold across the country in February, 2022
National President of CEAN, Mr. Patrick Lee said this was a tremendous increase compared with N224.34 million made from ticket sales in February, 2021.
UNESCO reported that the African film industry has great potential, but the lack of infrastructure like one cinema screen per 787,402 people makes it a laggard.
According to a new UNESCO report, about 5 million people currently work in the film sector in Africa, which contributes $5 billion to the continent's GDP.
Film distributors and exhibitors in Nigeria should increase their budgets for marketing and publicity of the movies they have accepted for their cinemas. They have to increase the appreciation for cinemas by millions of people in NIgeria from the lower class to the upper class of the society.
Over 60 million Nigerians spend over N730 billion annually on sports betting and at least two billion naira is generated daily according to a recent data with each one spending more than N3, 000 weekly on betting. So, millions of Nigerians have disposable personal income (DPI) to afford paying for tickets for movies at the cinemas.
1. Daniel Kanayo Daniel in "A Soldier's Story" 2015, for which he won the 2016 Africa Magic Viewers' Choice Awards (AMVCA) and the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) awards for Best Actor and in the sequel "A Soldier's Story 2" in 2021 acquired by Lionsgate.
2. JLeo Uche in "Rough Chase", 2015 and *A Trip To Libya", 2020.
JLeo Uche comes top of the league of action heroes for his outstanding expertise in martial arts and choreography of unarmed combat in duels.
3. Abbey Abimbola, aka Crackydon, in "BlackOut", 2021, his first Nollywood blockbuster action movie opening at the cinemas next month.
One of the three action thrillers will be the Best Nigerian Action Movie of the Year.
These three actors are currently the best Nigerian action heroes in Nollywood, the phenomenal first indie film industry in Africa that is rated the second largest in the world after the Bollywood of India in the annual quantity of movies. And has attracted Netflix, the #1 streaming video service in the world with more than 209 million subscribers so far.
Three Unforgettable Bollywood Films Loved By My Father
My great father of blessed memory, Sunday "Sunny" Eke loved going to cinemas almost daily, because he loved movies; especially #Hollywood western cowboys movies of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, war films and #Bollywood movies such as "Sholay" and "Seeta aur Geeta" and I loved the Bollywood legends; Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini,, Dharmendra Singh Deol , Sanjeev Kumar and lest I forget the most celebrated nautch dancer in Hindi romantic films, Helen Anne Richardson Khan. My father never sat down to watch any movie on TV. He would just glance at the popular Bonanza western cowboys series and Combat series on World War 2.
"Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Love in Tokyo" were among my father's most loved Bollywood movies and even as a little boy in the 1970s, I had a crush on Hema Malini and I fancied myself as Amitabh Bachchan. I thought Amitabh Bachchan and Hema would end up as husband and wife in real life.
I have forgotten the title of my favourite Amitabh Bachchan's film. His poor mother was working at a construction site of a high rise building where she fell and was badly injured. He was a struggling poet and had to an emotional TV interview by the woman who loved him, but was with another man.
I wish to meet Amitabh and Hema one fine day.
"Sholay' (Hindustani: [ˈʃoːleː] is a 1975 Indian action-adventure film written by Salim–Javed, directed by Ramesh Sippy, and produced by his father G. P. Sippy. The film is about two criminals, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), hired by a retired police officer (Sanjeev Kumar) to capture the ruthless dacoit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). Hema Malini and Jaya Bhaduri also star, as Veeru and Jai's love interests, Basanti and Radha, respectively. Sholay is considered a classic and one of the best Indian films. It was ranked first in the British Film Institute's 2002 poll of "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time. In 2005, the judges of the 50th Filmfare Awards named it the Best Film of 50 Years.
"Seeta
aur Geeta" (transl. Seeta and Geeta) is a 1972 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film, written by Salim–Javed (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar) and directed by Ramesh Sippy. It stars Hema Malini, Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar in leading roles, and features music composed by R.D. Burman.
"Love In Tokyo" is a 1966 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film directed and produced by Pramod Chakravorty.
Nollywood and the Image of Nigeria in the Global Village
(Written in 2006 for an African American magazine)
We all know that action speaks louder than word and seeing is believing. And nobody can deny this fact of life.
The history of the film industry in Nigeria did not start with the emergence of Nollywood as the Nigerian movies have been dubbed by the rest of the world and now celebrated as the third largest film industry in the world after American Hollywood and Indian Bollywood.
“The world has continued to marvel at how Nigerians "manufacture" and "fabricate" scores of movies in a week. It is reported that but for India, Nigeria produces more movies in quantitative terms than any other country in the world.”
~~ Tayo Aderinokun, Managing Director, Guaranty Trust Bank
Glover Memorial Hall was the venue of the first film to be shown in Nigeria in August, 1903 and this was done by the ruling colonial office of the British Empire that went on to show primarily educational clips, features and documentary reports of the royal trips to Nigeria and other colonies, English football matches, Westminster Parliamentary debates and other films of little or no value to the culture of Nigeria. And the cinema houses that soon showed up all over the popular cities in Nigeria from Lagos to Ibadan to Kano also showed Western films and later Indian films. But it is important to note that "Sanders of the River" by Edgar Rice Buroughs made in 1935 had some unique parts shot in Nigeria. The film featured the first world class Nigerian actor Orlando Martins (1899 – 1985) and was the first film to put the motion picture image of Nigeria on the map of the world.
Then Nigerian filmmakers such as Adamu Halilu, Mallam Brendan Shehu, Dr. Ola Balogun, Chief Eddie Ugbomah, the late Chief Hubert Ogunde and Francis Oladele produced classic films on celluloid since 1968 and Nigerian films were also competing among the foreign ones in the cinemas until the Indigenization Decree of 1972 transferred the ownership of over 300 cinema houses in the country from their foreign proprietors to Nigerians who did not have the expertise and capital to run them successfully and the economic depression of the late 1980s and the mass importation of Video Cassette Players worsened the situation as cinema houses lost the patronage of cinema goers who now preferred to buy the cheaper pirated films in video cassettes and watch them in the safer and more comfortable privacy of their homes. The popularity of home videos also affected the stage performances of plays by Nigerian playwrights as the numbers of people going to the theatres and town halls to watch live plays began to reduce. As the saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention, the challenges of survival for Nigerian theatre arts practitioners prompted them to dare the production of their plays in home videos. The Yorubas who were always the pioneers of the popular street theatre were also the pioneers of the home movies industry with “Aje Ni Iya Mi” by the late Isola Ogunsola who employed an Ibo man Nnebue of Nek Video Links to produce the video. And Nnebue seeing the great opportunity went on to produce the best selling “Living in Bondage 1 and 2” in 1992 before others joined the bandwagon. And now Nigerian movies have taken over TV screens all over Africa from Anglophone countries to the Francophone countries and over 20 million people watch Nigerian movies of which over 15 million are within Nigeria and the rest among the over 7 million Nigerians living in different parts of the world and most of them are in America, Western Europe, Asia and Australia. We are now living witnesses of the emergence of the phenomenon called Nollywood.
Over 50 movie titles are released weekly in Nollywood and attracting the attention of the rest of the world and Nollywood has become the picture of the Nigerian culture in the eyes of the world. Therefore, we must address the importance, relevance and significance of Nollywood as the image of Nigeria. As Dr. Odia Ofeimum stated in “In Defence of the Films We Have Made” in his keynote address at the second National Film Festival, 27 November 2003 and I quote:
“Powered by its home-grown sense which has been the source of its viability, it was primed to travel and to breach porous borders. Nigerians travel a lot and their video films have been traveling with them. Due to the surprise of self-recognition in our stories or the manner in which Nigerians tell them, other people have connected with the video films. So it was not enough to overcome the Nigerian market place. Through saturation marketing, Nigerian home-video mania crossed the borders even beyond the necessities of trade. Once the barn-storm-rating of the video camera overtook the cinema house, and by-passed its camp-following of foreign dominated distribution networks, it began to turn into a super-asset in a makeshift revolution that only those who are thoroughly impervious to social promptings have been able to ignore. The rest of the world may not have wanted to pay attention.”
Therefore, I believe the next stage of the sustainable development of the Nigerian film industry is the management of the aesthetics and ethics of the Art and Craft to portray a positive image of Nigeria to the rest of the world.
The desperation for quick profits and short-cuts to fame has made both the majority of Nigerian filmmakers and their domineering marketers to disregard the international standards of filmmaking as they rush to make over 50 movies weekly and careless about the content and context of the script and the craft. Thus making Nigerian movies to be known more for the quantity than the quality and millions of viewers have complained about the horrors of juju, lawlessness and bribery and corruption of the Nigerian public officials and others shown in most of the movies. Millions of foreigners have been shown the images of gawky Nigerian police officers collecting bribes at police check-points and engaged in other sharp practices and these negative images have only worsened the bad image of the Nigerian Police and of Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in the wrong. And this is the irony of the popularity of Nollywood. Because, as at present Nollywood is like a trailer overloaded with goods on the express way being driven by a desperate man without a driver's license and the others on the vehicle are struggling to correct the driver or even take over the steering from him. So, people are gasping and moping in awe and fear at the daredevil stunts of the vehicle and praying it does not crash. But is this the true picture of Nigeria?
No!
We must tell the true stories of Nigeria to the rest of the world.
The stories of our great heroes and heroines or “sheros” like Queen Amina, Emotan, Moremi, Madam Tinubu and the contemporary role models such as Dr. Dora Akunyili, Hajia Sambo and others.
Nollywood has become synonymous with the ingenuity of the smart Nigerian as Nigerians never give up in their pursuit of their goals to catch up with the leaders in whatever field of human enterprise they are interested in all over the world. But Nollywood should not ape Hollywood or Bollywood. Nollywood should be the mirror of Nigeria from the past to the present and the future. Therefore, Nollywood actors and actresses should not be competing to master who can fake the American Yankee accent or Cockney accent and should not be apes of Hollywood or Bollywood stars.
Nollywood should be proudly Nigerian, heart and soul.
Nigerian filmmakers should work in cooperation and support and pool their resources together to make Nigerian films that should be as good as any of the best films in the world. We should no longer be ridiculed for the common B-rated movies flooding the home videos rental shops and corners of the streets. We have had enough of the same rehashed stories with the same plots and badly produced too. We have had enough quantity without quality. Because, we must do our homework before we can produce excellent films that we can show at the Cannes and qualify to be nominated for the Oscars and not turned down again for poor standards.
We have a vehicle for the global village and we have already succeeded in impressing the rest of the world. So, we can now decide what our vehicle should convey and show to the whole world.
The world should see the hardworking Nigerian widow, who is the mother of six children as she wakes up at 4 am in Lagos and leaves for the far away Mile 12 market to trade and earn the means of livelihood.
Why?
She is doing it for the upbringing of her fatherless children she must send to school and pay their school fees, buy school uniform and textbooks and feed and clothe them and pay their medical bills whenever they fall ill.
The world should see the honest to God Nigerian police officers as they work day and night and they shun all temptations of bribes.
The world should see the hard working Nigerian labourers toiling daily to make ends meet.
The world should see the diligent Nigerian pupils walking miles to go to school and later to the farms, streams, and back to their.homes to do the chores.
The world should see the work-in-progress of proud Nigerians at work and at home doing their best in cooperation and support for the government in the nation building of a new Nigeria in the leadership of Africa in the comity of nations in the new millennium.
These are the true illustrations that our movies should portray and show to the rest of the world and let us be proud of Nigeria.
First Bollywood Film Adaptation of a Nigerian Novel: Sin is a Puppy that Follows You Home
Only a couple of the Hausa novels have been translated into English. “Sin is a Puppy that Follows You Home” was translated by Indian publishers and subsequently made into a Bollywood movie. The book is available on amazon.com, which describes it as “an Islamic soap opera complete with polygamous households, virtuous women, scheming harlots, and black magic.” Author Balaraba Ramat Yakubu, a veteran founder of the movement, was herself a child bride twice, after her first husband returned her to her family, and she only learned to read and write as an adult.
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-ap-top-news-religion-international-news-marriage-3fc0caa13a8646908219306c3e08225b
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Sin is a Puppy That Follows You Home: Publishers: Blaft,
126 pages.
Dear reader, I was rather charmed by it. Comparing the plot to Ekta Kapoor’s soaps or Karan Johar’s family dramas misrepresents the scale of the story because, for all the theatrics indulged in it, the plot is uncompromisingly stark about how patriarchy, society and religion interfere in women’s desires and autonomy. I found far more resonances with the pragmatic tragedies of Mahasweta Devi’s stories, or the deceptively mundane female worlds of Ismat Chughtai’s work. Women tear each other down, draw dramatic lines between sluttiness and respectability, rely on brothers and extended family while suffering spousal abuse and abandonment. Romance and courtship are abbreviated to a few fast-moving dialogues because the author wants to spend time on the minutiae of how a selfish second wife neglects her kitchen duties. Yakubu’s matriarchal lead Rabi—with her culinary enterprise born of desperation, her baffled rage at her husband’s mistress, her fierce determination to promote her children—is soul sister to Parvati from Kiran Nagarkar’s Ravan and Eddie. Rabi’s daughter Saudatu—dignified, dutiful, happily desirous—resembles Sita in her deference to narrative fiat.
The main reason I would recommend reading this book is because of how much it made me feel at home. It is not heartwarming in the treacly manner of popular films, but instead, like the family histories your aunties tell you, full of compromises and small justices, and the “life goes on” approach to domestic tragedy. This is not a story of exotic Africa, nor of epochal moments in histories of colonialism and its aftermath, nor yet about the fetishized tensions of being Muslim. Instead, it is shopkeepers falling in love with women stopping to buy dress material, and mothers vacillating between the street being unsafe and being a good place to meet eligible men, and bored wives eyeing comely electricians summoned to fix the wiring. Let other books talk about purdah and polygamy; this is a book that concerns itself with soap.
- The Review of The "Sin is a Puppy That Follows You Home" of Balaraba Ramat Yakubu by Deepa Dharmadhikari.
Balaraba Ramat Yakubu is a Nigerian author who writes in Hausa. She is a leader in the genre of littattafan soyayya or "love literature", and one of the very few Hausa-language writers whose work has been translated into English. She has also worked as a screenwriter, producer, and director of Kannywood films. Her stories have focused on issues such as forced marriages and women's education.
"My mentor said what you need most to make a great movie are not big cameras, not big budget, not big cast, not big crew and not a big story. But a Big Imagination."
- Success Iyoha, from Benin City, Edo State, NIGERIA.
Case Study:
The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The three disappear, but their equipment and footage are discovered a year later. The purportedly "recovered footage" is the film the viewer sees. Myrick and Sánchez conceived of a fictional legend of the Blair Witch in 1993. They developed a 35-page screenplay with the dialogue to be improvised. A casting call advertisement in Backstage magazine was prepared by the directors; Donahue, Williams and Leonard were cast. The film entered production in October 1997, with the principal photography taking place in Maryland for eight days. About 20 hours of footage was shot, which was edited down to 82 minutes. Shot on an original budget of $35,000–60,000, the film had a final cost of $200,000–750,000 after post-production edits.
Nigeria is Still Far Behind South Africa in Film and TV Productions
South Africa has the biggest film industry in Africa, followed by Egypt and Morocco in terms revenues in international film distribution and acquisition.
From the Academy Award winning "Tsotsi" of 2005 directed by Gavin Wood that grossed more than US$11 million from a budget of US$3 million to "District 9" of 2009 directed by Neill Blomkamp that had four nominations for the #Oscars. The film made more than US$210 million from a budget of US$30 million.
There are several other outstanding South African films of global success.
In spite of the popularity of sociocultural phenomenon of Nollywood, the first indie film industry in Africa ranked as the second largest film industry in the world after the Bollywood of India and ahead of Hollywood in the quantity of movies produced annually, we are still waiting for a Nigerian film that can make up to US$5 million from the box office or qualify for nominations at the Academy Awards, Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.
When it comes to TV, of course the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is more advanced than the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), both in content, programming and administrative management in structure and manpower. Without Multichoice in Nigeria, both the local public and private TV stations are lagging behind South African TV stations. The private TV stations in Nigeria don't produce enough programmes and the programmes are often running without any proper programming. And the programmes have discordant audio caused by bad audio boards or incompetent audio engineers.
No need to discuss the quality of the TV productions with bad sound.
They have badly produced local movies, documentaries and reality TV shows, because of low budgets and insufficient revenues to produce or buy premium content. So, they resort to having cheap content of low quality.
There are more entertainment on some Nigerian blogs than the local private TV channels in Nigeria. And they even compete for bragging rights to winning local TV awards with programmes that cannot be sold internationally.
