Actress and one-time on-air-personality, Funmi Fiberesima, has joined the league of Nollywood producers and is gearing up to premiere her debut movie titled Onikola. Funmi started her foray into the world of make-believe on stage with the Rivers State Art and Culture group. She went on to star in soaps before she moved on to radio and TV production. The lead character in Dotun Taylor’s Egberun Maili, in this interview with MERCY MICHAEL, opens up on her endeavours in the arts. She also speaks on family, growing up and her relationship.
YOU came into the industry, and after sometime you left. Your foray into the industry was quite short. Why?
I don’t think it was short-lived. Like you know, I started from the stage. I was on stage from 1991-2003. And from 2003, I was the Assistant Coordinator of the Guild of Nigerian Actors, Enugu State Chapter. But I went back to school to do communication. But I never really left acting because every now and then I still got to help out students in the Theatre Art class with their costume work, worked behind the stage and all. But it’s just that communication helped me to make a transition from acting into producing. When I started working in the communications industry, I was more of a producer. I got a job in 2009 or 2010 there about with TVC.
They just started at that time. I was a producer. It was in TVC I got trained to be a producer. I was a producer on TV and I was also a producer on radio, Radio Continental 102.3. I kind of find my work on radio the nitty-gritty of the job. And so things just developed. I still am a consultant for African Radio Drama Association. So it’s not like I left the industry, but the industry is very, very divided, divided in the sense that the industry has pockets of other components that come together to make it one big tree. It’s not just acting, it’s not just producing, it’s not just directing; it’s a whole lot that comes together to make one big tree.
Can you refresh our minds on the soaps you featured in before you took some sort of break?
I’ve done a couple of soaps on TV. Before I took the break, I began to write programmes. I met Sam Dede who was directing the soap House of Abraham, here in Port-Harcourt. And because I was on the soap and he was the director, I had a relationship with him, just like a mentor-mentee kind of relationship.
He introduced me to the producer and the producer was like let’s see how we can work together. So when I’m not on set and the producer has other things to do I go to the location with him, just to watch and generally assimilate by association. So it was more like Sam Dede taught me. After that, in Lagos, while I was working with TVC, I was doing a soap, No Where to be Found. Yes, I think it was No Where to be found. I’ve always been acting but I never was really pursuing it, but it was while I was at TVC that I also did this Dotun Taylor’s movie, Egberun Maili.
Really?
Yes, I starred in Egberun Maili. I was the lead character in the movie.
Was that your first Nollywood movie, so to speak?
Let me say that was my first time to star in a movie.
And was that the movie that gave you your break?
Acting wise? I wouldn’t say it gave me much of the break. It’s more than one role that gives you a break. You have to keep at it, but I wasn’t willing to keep at it.
Why?
Yes, because there are pretty much so many things that I could do, and like I said, acting was not the only thing that was intriguing to me anymore. There was just something that I was looking for and I think it was to be able to make my own film, berth my own ideas.
So, if anything, I did Onikola, my film that I just recently produced. I hope this one will give me the break I’m looking for because in this one I was able to be a producer and I was also able to act in it. I tried to like find a balance for myself. I was not just wearing a producer’s hat, I was also wearing an actor’s hat. I don’t think I want to direct because that is a talent that I think you have to be born with.
So I don’t think I want to direct. But someday I may direct .There’re just so many things in the art I want do. The art is like a river. You cannot tell it where to flow. You just find fulfillment in expressing everything that’s in you. So, with Onikola, I was able to express more than one talent that I find in me. I feel it’s easier for people who know they can act, they know they are fantastic actors and are not interested in anything else. For me, I see myself as one with multiple talents.
I’m interested in a whole lot of other things. I see myself as somebody with so much more talent so I don’t get satisfied just doing one thing. If in one project I’m able to wear more than one hat and I’m able to wear it well, it is fantastic. In Onikola, I loved the experience of wearing all the hats together. And I think it’s something I want to do all over and over again. That is why my publicist says that, I’m a little Tyler Perry in the making because he’s able to, like, do everything at one time. I’m hoping I would be able to get to that level.
Do you think that you will get a favourable feedback with Onikola, being your first?
I hope it will be able to give me the feedback that I need because ultimately you are producing for the audience hoping that they will be able to find their meaning in the expression of art that you have chosen. This is just me growing.
Right now, virtually everyone in Nollywood is an actor, producer, and this, in a way, has fostered competition in the industry. What do you intend to bring to the table?
First and foremost I would like to say, a lot of the actors that are producers now, it has been like a natural progression for them. They’ve been in the entertainment industry long enough. I think it takes a lot of guts. It’s takes a lot of courage. Haven said that, you will agree with me that Nollywood won’t have been where it is today if people like Uche Jombo and the rest did not take the bull by the horns.
How can I forget Kunle Afolayan? If people like him did not take the bull by the horns we still would have been doing those wishy-washy films. You understand what I’m saying. So they began to bring the spark and the quality that was not there before. They have moved Nollywood further and that in itself is something commendable. Then, speaking on what I am bringing to the table. I am hoping to be able to tell stories that will appeal to probably the international audience, doing quality stories, something better or as good as what actors that have now become producers are doing because what they are doing is something worthy of emulation if you ask me.
I’m hoping that I will be able to mirror the traditional Nigerian spirit, to showcase the indomitable spirit of the Nigerian woman and child. To tell stories that can probably change or influence policies, stories that touch on the fabric of the Nigerian society. If I’m able to do that I will be very grateful to God.
So this is me saying that I want to be creative. I want to tell stories that are part of our everyday life. I’m going to be telling a lot of stories that have to do with my life because I’ve had quite a journey myself. I’m not going to limit myself. I’m going to be very creative.
Would it be right to say your come-back is going to be more of producing than acting?
It’s going to be a lot of me doing everything. Don’t be surprised if you see a film production, Funmilayo Cameraman. It’s going to be me doing everything but producing is something that has been in my heart. I didn’t know it at a time, but doing it I know it’s something that my heart has longed for, for a long time. When I was unsatisfied with acting that was probably what I was looking for but I didn’t know it at the time.
Can you describe the mind of a producer?
The mind of a producer is eternally creative. The mind of the producer is like the womb of a mother. The child now is your story and then the process of writing it and producing it could be likened to the process of delivery the mother goes through. And when you now produce and you premiere it it’s like naming ceremony. It’s like the womb of a mother; and the mind of the producer knows what is best for the production.
It is intriguing to me that you would decide to produce your first movie in Yoruba language. What informed that?
My mother is Yoruba and I was born in Lagos. Yoruba is my first language. My mother is from Ogun State. She’s from Okunola, less than two hours’ drive from Abeokuta. But my father is Rivers. Now that I’ve done something from my mother side you should be expecting something from my father’s side soon. But one thing that I think influences the way I see life is that I had an identity crisis.
To my mother’s side, we were those Igbo children and to the father’s side we were those Yoruba children. You are never really, really accepted so much. I felt a lot of acceptance among strangers than I did at home, among my extended families. To my aunties and uncles I’m just always a Rivers girl, in fact they call me Omo Ajeokuta ma mumi, and to my Rivers’ aunties and uncle I’m just always a Yoruba girl. My father’s title is that man with Yoruba children because my mum passed on a long time. We are just Yoruba to them. Yoruba people don’t accept us, River people don’t accept us.
Somehow it kind of allowed me the luxury of being attached to both cultures from an outsider point. I like to see myself as a blessed Yoruba girl that was blessed to have an extremely close relationship with the Rivers people. And then, I’m a blessed Rivers girl that was blessed to have extremely close relationship with the Yoruba people. So like Jesus would say, I’m neither Yoruba nor Rivers but I am Yoruba and Rivers.
How old were you when your mother passed on?
I was 15 going on 16. She had breast cancer.
What was it like learning to be a woman by yourself and not from your mother?
It made me value her presence more. My relationship with my mum was the type that you didn’t know her value until she was gone because I was always feeling like why won’t this woman just get off my case? And all of sudden there is nobody on your case and it was like where do I go? What do I do? When she passed on we relocated finally to Port-Harcourt. There, I was as free as a bird. I pretty much learnt everything I know by the grace of God.
You must have made a lot of mistakes in your teens?
Yes, I did. I made loads and loads of mistakes but let me say God found me. It could have been worse but it wasn’t. And I thank God am still alive today. But even in that freedom it wasn’t like there was no one to tell me anything but it was more like with the Yoruba, when they give you instruction and you say no, they will beat you until you say yes, but with the Rivers people it’s not like that.
They give you instruction and you say no, they are like’ you are on your own’. Do your thing, no problem. It was more like I experimented with not having any kind of authority, later my father put his foot down, shipped me to my grandma place to go and stay. Imagine me, I don’t understand Okrika, my grandma doesn’t understand English; she only understands Okrika, so there was communication crisis and once I say anything she doesn’t understand, she starts to cry, accusing me of abusing her. It wasn’t funny. Every night when my dad comes back she reports me and he beats me, but one day my dad witnessed that scenario, that was when he now believed me. I pretty much had to learn my language.
How did your childhood prepare you for this path, your endeavours?
Not having real acceptance at home, I think that translated to my social life as a child because I never felt like I was in with the crowd. I was more of a tomboyish, trouble maker type. And all that made me like my own company more. But I didn’t like my own company when I was small because everybody had best friends and cool girls that the guys wanted to be with but I was just this ‘type’ of person. I wanted to fit in. I tried to fit in but I never did fit in. I began to like myself the day I stopped trying to fit in, and then I accepted that maybe you’ll never fit in. It kind of like made me to watch people from the outside.
Your first relationship and not having your mother there to share with…
It wasn’t so much fun. It happened when I came to Port-Harcourt. Everyone just thought I would be a bad girl for one reason because I had gotten to the point that I wasn’t interested in mixing. So they just generally felt I must be a very bad girl. I chose my friend by myself. Having a relationship, I didn’t learn so much from people’s experiences because I didn’t have people who would share theirs with me. I kind of like made my mistakes and then learnt from them.
I would say that the situation made me kind of prayerful because God became my friend and the person I can talk to. Like the Bible says, everything kind of worked together for my good at the end. Growing up was tough but it made me tougher.
Have you experienced battering in your relationship before?
Yeah, I still have a broken shoulder to show for it. But the way I got back was that I stayed in the relationship and worked on myself until I didn’t love him again. It was a decision that I’m not going to love this person anymore.
When I would say I got my revenge was when I woke up one morning and decided the relationship was over. The guy was like what! He begged for one year but I didn’t feel sorry for him. Every now and again, I get long ‘am sorry’ text messages. I don’t even read it.
Do you believe in love?
I believe in love but I believe that love is good when you find somebody that loves himself. Any man that loves himself is capable of being a good man to love.
Why did you do a film on circumcision?
Onikola is a film about female circumcision and it’s a film everybody should know about, watch and do something about. We took it seriously for a while and a lot of communities stopped it, but until no child is being circumcised I don’t think we should rest.
