Category: Victor Akande

Plus-size actress and founder of Rachael Okeke-Ozzoude Foundation (ROOF), Ify Okeke, and her team are set again this year to fete the less-privileged at an event billed to hold on December 20 at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Festac, Lagos.

This year’s event tagged “Let My Best Be Someone Best & Let My Trash Be Someone Treasure” will witness activities such as Widows on runway, Dance competition by widows, music, empowerment and presentation of awards.

According to Ify, ROOF will give away items such as rice, vegetable oil and toiletries among others.

Ify said, “We are all set for this year. Let’s do it again. I want to formally tell you about my yearly Charity event ‘Empowerment For The Less Privileged & Humanitarian Awards (ELPHA). This event is mainly to empower and party with the children, orphans, blind, deaf, dumb, widows, Down syndrome, disabled, aged ones, physically & socially challenged one among others.

“I will want you to be part of it, and tap into this. I promise you won’t regret it. This award is strictly to honour those who selflessly stand in the gap for the less privileged ones.”

In June 2018, Ify marked 20 years on stage, an event she used to reach out to widows. The event, tagged ‘Roof lives with smiles’ had every widow present go home with the empowerment equipment and monetary gift made available by good Samaritans.

Until the 90s, no one could have thought that Nigerian music could be preferred by the locals as against the dominant American songs which of course remain legendary to date.

Today, American music is second choice to an average Nigerian youth who is still possessed by Hollywood movies.

The battle for the life of African entertainment in general could be likened to bleaching the skin. People who do, usually have a false sense of beauty upgrade. Reason being that even when a light complexion is perceived to have made up for whatever limitation, like an early sun, it doesn’t last the day – apologies to the late Michael Jackson.

The Hip-hop and rap genres are evidences of the fact that originality could emerge from imitation – judging by how the late Dagrin, Olamide, Phyno and Sarkodie of Ghana have funkified local lyrics to the admiration of many.

But Nigerian movies are not breathing as healthily as its songs because the former’s jugular is still within the grip of Hollywood.

The problem is not just about the so called low-budget Nollywood film, because even films from South Africa with funding by developmental and cultural agencies are replicas of the Hollywood crime thrillers, with some of the celebrated titles like How to Steal 2 Million, Hard To Get, and iNumber Number among others.

The wind of African renaissance must blow across the film sector, because of the visual and subtle import of the medium.

 Should I say the consciousness is already brewing?

Sometime ago at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), festival director, Pedro Pimenta, during his opening speech at the Nigerian Day jolted the gathering when he said the solution about African cinema can only be found in Africa, and not anywhere abroad. I particularly like Pimenta’s quote of an African author, which says ‘It is important for the future of cinema that Africa exists’. “We must exist. We shouldn’t always try to be like Hollywood because they have got no stories. They are now going back to comics. Whereas Africa is living on a huge well of untold stories,” he said.

 How do we free the jugular of African youngsters from this neocolonialism that continues to threaten the art, culture and business of motion picture entertainment in Africa? 

The youths appear the most adventurous and vulnerable here. And until the filmmakers employ whatever stunt that the musicians pulled to bring the industry to where it is today, the future remains bleak.

If filmmakers improve their art and Africans learn to cherish and patronise their works, the population of the continent is enough to grow the art business without looking outwards.

Today, a documentary film debut by London-based Nigerian filmmaker, Labi Odebunmi, premieres on urban lifestyle channel, Soundcity. Odebunmi shared the passion of a British-Nigeria music star and first Afrobeat artiste to sign a recording deal with Island Records, a notable international record label, with credits for the works of artistes such as Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse.

The essence, he said, was to give the average Nigerians who may not have the opportunity to fly to London to have the feel of the society and appreciate the cultural realities being imbibed by most Nigerians in the Diaspora.

“We have got to that stage in the UK where white folks including those at West End now dance to Nigerian music at their clubs and even play our Afrobeat songs on their radio stations. The other day, Wizkid’s Ojuelegba was played on the influential Capital FM and everybody could feel the vibe. This is because of the Nigerian culture which gives originality to the genre of music they play,” he said.

As we seek to rewrite the African narrative, I look forward to that day when there will be more posters of Nollywood films than Hollywood’s in our cinemas.

This teen movie made my day at the just concluded Toronto International Film Festival when it screened on September 13, 2018 at the Scotiabank Theatre.

It is a story about racism, and how we live with it every day, even in the acclaimed civilized societies.

It is a story about how one is quick to call a dog a bad name just to hang it.

It is a story about inequality in a society of equals in the face of the law.

This is how we see it through the eyes of Amandla Stenberg who plays Starr Carter, a girl who witnesses a police shooting her best friend, in George Tillman’s adaptation of Angie Thomas’s 2017 bestseller.

Starr is constantly switching between two worlds — the poor, mostly black neighborhood where she lives and the wealthy, mostly white prep school that she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is soon shattered when she witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend at the hands of a police officer. Facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and decide to stand up for what’s right.

Just as Nigerian-British actor, Adewale Akinnuola-Agbaje portrays of himself in his coming-of-age movie, ‘Farming’, which screened at the same festival, ‘The Hate U Gave’ puts the protagonist in a cultural identity dilemma. And despite having a white boyfriend in High School, it soon becomes too clear to her, where the society places her.

Starr is a 16-year-old from the poor, mostly black community of Garden Heights, where her protective dad Maverick (Russell Hornsby) owns the local grocery store. For school, though, Starr and her siblings go to Private Williamson Prep about 40 minutes away in a rich white neighborhood because mom Lisa (Regina Hall) wants her kids to fit into the popular side of society – in education and class. But to start with, the very suggestive eyes she gets from girls at Williamson while spending time with her white boyfriend Chris (K.J. Apa) makes her so unsure, until one night, while riding home with her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith), they’re pulled over and she watches how, in horror, Khalil is gunned down by a white cop.

Yes, Khalil made a wrong move by going for his hairbrush, would he have been shot dead if he were a white boy in a white neighborhood even if he was reaching out for a gun as the cop was to later claim?

Starr and Khalil just reconnected at a party; they just shared their second kiss ever… the last forever. He is a handsome and promising black kid.

Viewers see a struggle within Starr to speak up or keep quiet. There is her white boyfriend on one hand. There is the black community that wants justice. There is her uncle Carlos (Common), a cop himself, who shields her from post-shooting investigation and tries to justify government’s perspective. There is also the drug dealer King (Anthony Mackie), for whom Khalil, who must survive, was selling drugs and who would make sure Starr doesn’t tell police about his connection to the case.

When she finally decides to speak, Starr would do it, not just to be the voice of Khalil, but of many others, herself inclusive, not minding the grave sacrifice.

Meanwhile, as a way of not spreading the hate further and unduly, the film strikes a balance. Khalil, instead of being so nonchalant, should have obeyed simple police instruction by keeping still – hands in the air.

Starr understands this better and had warned him. He merely gave the cop a cheap reason to strike. Justifying the Yoruba proverb that blames a man, whose enemy desires to consume by fire, for rubbing an inflammable cream.

Starr knows this because Maverick teaches her when she’s a small child about what to do when pulled over by police, reminding his kids that “just because we have to deal with this mess, don’t you ever forget that being black is an honor, because we come from greatness.” And with that foundation, Starr figures out how to best live her own life and fight systemic bias.

It is usually the other way round but with the clamour for the glamour of the silver screens, this dynamism in business of filmmaking points to a degradation in the creative sector, and as this may be peculiar to Nigeria, it is high time we cried foul before it gets endemic.

Why? We cannot move one step forward and two steps backward and claim that our industry is growing.

In a business that feeds the GDP of other nations, how can we evolve when a trend that erodes quality is the order of the day?

When an employee credits the bank account of their supposed employer to get monthly pay slips that give the impression that they are employed, that’s asserting that bribery is not the same thing as corruption.

An actor is an employee of the producer who in turn empowers the most senior employee; the film director to take the captain’s seat.

If the saying that, he who pays the piper dictates the tune is anything to go by, then the organogram of the movie production line is disrupted.

For example, how does a director chides an actor over their shortcomings on set? What does the contract even look like in the event that the actor is buying his space in the movie production? Tell me how such an actor won’t dictate to their supposed boss, either directly or indirectly.

I figure that an actor who pays to get a role demands a lead role, depending on how much is in context. I figure also that an actor who chooses to buy his space is either not a professional in the business or not talented enough to get a role on merit. This is bound to tell on the outcome of the production, in a negative way too.

I imagine that if the trend is not discouraged, and very soon too, we may begin to see productions in which the entire cast are self-employed, and invariably, co-owners of the film project. Can you imagine a battalion of charlatans interpreting roles in a movie? There is no gainsaying that not only will ethics be eroded, creative licence which is already an ‘ass’, will be so glaringly insulted that play will amount to child’s play.

I had written against communal form of filmmaking among some Yoruba filmmakers who, in this century, have chosen to carry on the model of the old theater practice whereby actors reciprocate gestures by performing free of charge. This current trend of paying filmmakers for a role is even worse for business.

How did we get here? There had been stories of sex for roles in Nollywood, and no doubt, some of the actresses we see today may have used such gratifications to get to limelight. Perhaps when the scene became more competitive with many willing to gratify the filmmaker in ‘kind’, cash became a more veritable offering, either in total or in addition to ‘kind’.

Ever since cash became an option, it probably got the male wannabes thinking that this is fair ground for all.

Notable comic actor and director, Charles Inojie, offered a perspective recently while criticising this trend. His thoughts on the issue were captured below:

“In those days, people had more discipline in the industry. Discipline has been eroded in the movie industry. For example, in the past, when someone was called a director, it would be obvious that the person had earned the name, but these days anybody just assumes that role.

“There are many people who do not really want a career; they just want to use Nollywood as a springboard for them to promote their other businesses. When there is no discipline and order, it trickles down the line. In those days, when an actor came on set, their first question would be: who is the director? If it was a name they couldn’t risk connecting their reputation with, they would leave the job.

“I think people should be trained, I even hear they pay for roles these days; which should be the other way round. These things have affected the quality of movies in the industry. The solution to this problem is to strengthen the guild to function; they should be able to reprimand their members when they err. The guild should be empowered to organise training but the government also has a role to play in this,” Charles Inojie said.

Whether we like it or not, the trend is a rot. It is not healthy for the business aspect of the show in the creative space.

If the guilds and associations are getting livid due to internal politics, and cannot uphold ethics as they used to do, perhaps the time is now, more than ever, for the much proposed Motion Pictures Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPPICON) to step in.