The Nation Newspaper

Category: Victor Akande

  • NOLLYWOOD: Multilingualism in expression and sectional tantrums

    IN recent times, worries and concerns have been raised against the standard practices in the Nigerian film industry. Generally, most of these concerns are tilted towards the survival means of the stakeholders- how and why the art should pay bills.

    This development is understandable, especially with the soaring popularity of the Nigerian film experiments across the globe. One would think that, after the twenty years of ‘Nigerian citizen cinema’, stakeholders should be smiling to the banks, while concentrating and consolidating on building critical audience with special attention to cultural memory, national identity and poverty alleviation. Shall we get there?

    But what gives me serious cause for concern, is the puerile agitation by the Yoruba language movie makers under the aegis of the Association of Nigeria Theatre Arts Practitioners (ANTP), for parity with their English speaking counterparts, hence, the birth of Yorubawood. I cannot but laugh at this neology. I feel impelled to say that there should not be anything like Yorubawood; the contraption called Nollywood is even debatable. Why should we create another ‘wood’ that does not exist? There are lots of indigenous expression such as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and other languages. Regardless of the languages, they are all under Nollywood.

    There are fifteen national languages recognised by the Indian constitution and these are spoken in over 1600 dialects among which are Hindi, Bengali and Telugu. The languages of expression in their films cut across Hindi and English. Whereas, another appellation for Indian film industry is Bollywood. How come they did not classify some group Hindiwood , Bengaliwood, Teluguwood and another Bollywood? Same for China, and other countries across the globe.

    And talking about who is making money and who does not or simply put, who is rich and who is poor. To my mind, this is just a reflection of complexities and complicities on the part of the Yoruba movie makers. Complexities? Yes! Most of these people lack the self-worth, while some overrate their capabilities. In the same vein, most of these people are accomplices in the present state of the industry. How?

    First, you can’t compare a film with national outlook and appeal with a regional outlook; they may never record the same box office success. That is not to say that Yoruba movies cannot have national and even international appeal, it all depends on the total package and presentation. Language of expression is never a barrier in filmmaking.

    Second, film business is meant for a total creative person and not mediocre. It goes beyond shooting a feature length in five days and releasing same twice a month in a DTH format. From packaging (storyline, shooting style, technicalities, subtitling), media hypes, marketing/distribution and even monitoring/evaluation, every hands must be on deck.

    Third, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Joke Silva, Olu Jacobs, Bukky Wright, and a couple of others are all A-list cross over actors. They are all Yorubas. But do you know why they are doing well? Aside a stroke of luck, they are professionals. Most actors in the Nigerian movie experience are not professionals, especially the Yorubas. How? Their English Nollywood counterparts handle their acting careers on strict business ethics known in Nigerian parlance as, ‘money for hand back for ground’. Besides, they have management companies and do not compromise standard. Call it pride if you wish.

    This stands in total contrast to the kind of communal filmmaking the Yoruba movie makers are doing. Most of the Yoruba actors and stakeholders need to acquire skills and upskill. Modern filmmaking has gone beyond ‘alarinjo theatre’ model. Modern filmmaking requires a modicum of creativity, talents, education and technology. There are lots of Yoruba filmmakers who have refused to join the ANTP and are doing great. Methink self assessment is highly needed here.

    Communal film making is the art of providing services to every member of a group in turn with little or nothing as mode of remuneration. This is the simplest way I can explain this cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of the Yoruba actors and film makers in the name of caucus and apprenticeship. I have personally taken this up with the leadership of ANTP at a forum, and it was denied. Caucus can only kill creativity, whereas cross fertilisation of ideas and expertise grows it. If Omotola Jalade- Ekeinde, Genevieve Nnaji, Nadia Buari, Tonto Dikeh, etc were to be doing communal filmmaking, perhaps by now, they will be frying bean cake in their villages.

    Also, the modern slavery called apprenticeship in the Yoruba film circle as an offshoot of communal filmmaking must be abolished. It is a pure case of the blind leading the blind. It is really a laughable matter. They exhort, exploit, and even mislead their apprentices. An apprentice has this to say, “…I joined XYZ film caucus with N5, 000 form fee and N35, 000 training fee…yet we still pay N100 for rehearsals. I pay for my accommodation, transportation and feeding to locations, regardless of the number of days. I may be featured in one scene or nothing in most cases…I paid for the ANTP Identity Card since April 17, 2011, the card has refused to come till now.” Need I say more on this?

    Finally, film has only language- good story telling technique. Regardless of the language of expression, a good film is a good film even without sound. We were watching Indian films at cinemas in the 80s without subtitling and we enjoyed them. Same with Chinese films and others. Tsotsi, a South African film won the Best Foreign Language Film at the coveted Oscar awards in 2006 and was nominated for the Golden Globe in the same category. The film was shot in Afrikaans language. Yoruba filmmakers should learn to do it right and they will get it right. Tunde Kelani, is doing well in that direction. He may not be ‘rich’, but he is happy.

     

  • New NFC boss saga: Confusion Na Wa!

    APOLOGIES to Cinema Kpatakpata for borrowing the title of their award-winning film to illustrate the drama that has engulfed the Nigerian film Industry in the last few days over the appointment of a University lecturer as the new Managing Director of the Apex film agency, the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC).

    Not a Marine Engineer after all. He is also not Danjuma Dado, as many had speculated, But Danjuma Wurim Dadu, as we were later to find out. I sympathize with the two Danjumas who had earlier rushed to the Information Ministry, laying claims to the position. A movie on that scenario could make a good comic – a laughable drama on wishful thinking by the wrong Danjumas and on the other side, a careless government for not preempting the friction.

    In accepting the ‘correct’ Danjuma, perhaps the film industry should take consolation in the fact that, George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars movies was just a race-car driver, who spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. There is also, James Cameron, who studied Physics and English, but did several jobs such as truck driving before his landmark successes as a film director, film producer, screenwriter and editor. What about Harrison Ford who was a carpenter, and Sylvester Stallone, who was a Lion cage cleaner?

    Even then, some filmmakers have thought about the creativity endowed in human beings and didn’t rule out Danjuma completely. They had thought of the fact that he could have some knowledge of film. They had hoped that in a worst case scenario, he would have been an administrator or project coordinator somewhere with proven leadership and managerial qualities. But behold, the new Managing Director of NFC happened to be someone handpicked by divine favour; the kind of favour that religious people pray and fast for; asking God to give them unmerited blessings. Our Danjuma got it; just by earning a PhD and teaching at a University for about two years. And guess what, he teaches at the Department of Building, Faculty of Environmental Design. There is no evidence that he has any professional affinity to film, except that on his facebook page, he seems to be a lover of music. Yes, music… Isn’t soundtrack a part of the substance of a movie?

    Now that other aspirants have been beaten hands down, we can only hope and pray, that Oga Dadu will turn out to be that unassuming messiah that the film industry needs, irrespective of his inexplicable transition from ‘building’ profession to the art, business and politics of filmmaking. One of the prayer points must also be that God should make him a fast learner, a listening leader and charismatic person, who will be good at steering the ship of existing technocrats? After all, isn’t he supposed to be just an administrator?

    However, this is a case of mixed reactions, and as it appears, only the man wearing the shoe knows where it pinches. If acclaimed moralists have got the powers, the word ‘selfishness’ could have been expunged from the dictionary, but if that were to be done, can it be undone from the human psyche? Are we all not selfish by nature, and is this not the reason that a pastor will profess ‘unmerited favours’ for his church members even when he knows that someone will be at the receiving end of that grace? Isn’t it true that one man’s smile is another man’s frown? Otherwise, why would someone work as a civil servant for about 20 or 25 years and at the peak of his career, a man who has worked elsewhere just for two years, in an unrelated profession, is brought to take his place in the name of political appointment?

    But even at the Civil Service level, why should headship be a factor of turn-by-turn? Isn’t merit the reason that the private sector is competitive and progressive? Why must headship also be for the most senior? Couldn’t government get people in directorship position tested as potential administrators? Also, why leave people in acting capacity for so long, creating room for ‘ambition’ and so much inactiveness in the system. Just thinking… Thinking still, how much has the industry benefitted from the leadership of administrators who are knowledgeable in the art of film? Pushing their shortcomings aside, how much could they have achieved with so much politicking and bureaucracy in the system? So much confusion about who we are and what we want… even writing this piece is as imprecise as I would have loved it.

    So much agitation to review the appointment of Dadu now, when the film industry could have jointly proposed people it trusts long before government made an independent choice. Why would government listen to such agitations now, when between the expiration of the tenure of the erstwhile administrator and now, they had individually lobbied themselves for this position? Why would government respect the views of the filmmakers now? So much confusion in the film industry, so much marking time without matching, but the show must go on!

  • Is FESPACO afraid of Nollywood?

    Is FESPACO afraid of Nollywood?

    Aggrieved with the age-long politics of Pan African Film Festival otherwise called FESPACO, Nigerian filmmakers have mooted the idea of boycott, especially because of what they consider as a conservative policy of the festival. FESPACO has maintained an inflexible demand for celluloid productions. Many thought this is politically motivated. They view it as utmost bias for the Anglophone countries that are generally not disposed to film funds by their governments. Following my thought in last week’s edition, urging Nollywood filmmakers not to quit the stage, but remain in the system to fight the ugly trend, I found particularly interesting and relevant, an abridged version of Bic Leu’s report on the grievances expressed by some African filmmakers, on one hand, and the insistence by the conveners of FESPACO on the other hand, to keep to status quo.

    …Indeed, “African cinema” has been historically synonymous with Francophone African films, according to film curator and Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) jury member Keith Shiri. The primary source of funding for these movies is the French government, which allots an average budget of €500,000 to €2 million per film to its former colonies, thus allowing filmmakers to purchase and process pricey celluloid stock abroad at the cost of $400 to $500 per minute of film. These products are then distributed globally at film festivals and are seldom watched by their native audiences. Recent international attention has been directed at the robust volume of independently financed and lower budget productions from Nigeria and other Anglophone African countries. These films are shot on much cheaper digital formats and are enthusiastically consumed by Africans, thus challenging the traditional concept of “African cinema”.

    Director Tunde Kelani confronted FESPACO’s definition of film at the African Film, Video, and the Social Impact of New Technologies workshop organized during the Festival by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) on February 27 and 28, 2011. While he is listed as a “video-maker” in the workshop program, Kelani has worked with a variety of audiovisual media over his 30-year career: super 8; super 16; 8 mm; 16 mm; 35 mm; all video formats; and now digital format. He emphasized the false contradictions between cinema and video, stating that new technology allows digital cameras to use film lenses and for some digital formats to have higher resolutions than 35 mm film. Kelani forecast that celluloid production will disappear in the near future due to cheaper digital alternatives to shooting high-resolution film, such as the RED ONE camera.

    Kelani is not alone. Chairman of the AMAA Selection Committee, Shaibu Husseini privately conceded the need for FESPACO to adapt to technological changes: “They need to modify the rules to accommodate recent developments in technology. There shouldn’t be rules on making films in celluloid.”

    Yet at the CODESRIA workshop, Burkinabe director Idrissa Ouedraogo countered Kelani and Husseini’s position by maintaining that a hierarchy exists between celluloid and video because “the beauty of the image is in the celluloid” and that video is unable to capture a wide range of contrast. He continued by asserting that movies made in Nigeria are more commerce than art, referring to Nollywood’s rapid production schedule as “business, not cinema”.

    Director Kunle Afolayan tried to find common ground among these viewpoints at a Centre Culturel Français Ouagadougou screening of The Figurine on March 1. He emphasized his film’s self-sufficient financing and production structure as an advantage: “The film is self-funded and made entirely by Nigerians.” But he also stressed that collaboration between Anglophone and Francophone filmmakers is the key to take African cinema to the next level: “The camera knows no language…The sky is the limit if we come together as Africans.”

    Afolayan’s appeal for intracontinental cooperation may be coming true: three films nominated for the Nigerian-produced AMAA also competed at FESPACO: A small town called Descent (South Africa, 2010), Zebu and the photo fish (Kenya, 2010), and Dina (Mozambique, 2010). In addition, FESPACO awarded Champions of our time the second prize in the TV & Video category, fueling expectations that more Nigerian directors will be recognized in future editions.

    In the end, FESPACO 2011 was defined by a missed opportunity to unite filmmakers across the continent regardless of production format, budget, or colonial histories. Shiri observes an excitement surrounding the “new wave of directors from Nigeria who understand the importance of aesthetics, sound, pacing, and the strength of the story.” As Nigerian and other Anglophone cinema cultures gain global prominence, FESPACO’s continued alienation of them over politics of production will be detrimental to the Festival’s standing as the preeminent place on the continent to view and discuss African cinema.

    -Bic Leu is a US Fulbright Fellow researching the social impact of Nollywood at the University of Lagos.

  • Sustaining the NIBRA initiative

    Sustaining the NIBRA initiative

    AFTER 51 years of broadcasting in Nigeria, it is difficult to say that the level at which radio and television operate is the best that we can afford. Yes, the freedom that was attained in 1993 following the establishment of the first private radio station may have enhanced competition, but content still remains a major challenge. This is much so because contents that address social issues and which used to provide direction to the young ones seem to have disappeared, while the seeming liberty associated to privatization has resulted in influx of foreign contents that do more than erode our culture.

     

    All over the world, an award scheme, apart from the glamour and sense of merriment, appears to be the best form of competitiveness that could stimulate the need by practitioners to thirst for excellence. This brings to mind, the whole essence of the Nigerian Broadcasters Awards (NIBRA), an initiative of the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON), which is geared towards rewarding stakeholders in those areas that they have added value to the industry.

     

    Otherwise, how do we justify the efforts of our past heroes and the supposed exposures garnered since the establishment of the BBC Empire Service in 1932? How do we justify the subsequent listening post, established by the British Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos in 1936 – one which later transformed into the Radio Distribution Service (RDS)? How do we look back and say with a sense of pride that we have done well from April 1951, which marked the beginning of direct radio transmission in Nigeria with the establishment of Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBC) which became fully functional in Lagos in 1952, and from where its services were extended to Kaduna in May 1952, Enugu in September 1952 and Ibadan in April 1955, where the previous re-diffusion relay stations were converted into fully operational NBS stations? Or more importantly, how can we say television has fared since 1959, when the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo established the first television station in Africa, the Western Nigerian Television (WNTV)?

     

    Even while we raise these questions, it is pertinent to note that Nigerian broadcasting has been a source of unity for the country since the colonial era. The deregulation of broadcasting by General Ibrahim Babangida government through the Decree No. 38 of 1992 can only be said to have created better understanding between the government and the governed.

     

    But in celebrating other sectors of the economy, stakeholders in the broadcast sector have been too busy or unconcerned about the need to honour their own. Honours for practitioners in the industry can only challenge others to amend the grey areas in which they are being criticized.

     

    It is sad, that most of these professionals like Chief Executives of Broadcast Stations, Editors, Reporters, Presenters, Producers, Engineers, Technicians, Programme Directors as well as Audio/Lighting Specialist and Cameramen have worked, retired and died unsung.

     

    Industry watchers have fingered broadcasters to be too pre-occupied with promoting other professionals from all walks of life and building them into stardom, while they (broadcaster), are rarely noticed, let alone being featured in the list of recipients, annually honoured, with National Honours by the Federal Government.

     

    This should not be so, because broadcasters have made immense contributions to the social, economic and political development of Nigeria. The broadcast medium because of its instantaneous presence, ubiquity, has more than any other medium, contributed in shaping public opinion, promoting national discourse and stability in contemporary Nigeria.

     

    In the coverage of national issues, particularly politics and elections at all levels, the broadcast media has always been conservative, restrained, and not sensational in its coverage and reportage, knowing that any false report could lead to break down of law and order.

     

    Thus, I share in the good initiative of BON for its attempt to honour broadcasters through the Nigerian Broadcasters Awards (NIBRA) come October 27, 2012. BON, the umbrella association of all privately and publicly owned Radio and Television stations in Nigeria, is on point with this initiative which I believe is designed to promote excellence and professionalism in all aspects of broadcasting, as well as enhance healthy competition within the industry.

     

    It is important that BON puts enough energy in this scheme and drive it to a point where it becomes an annual festival a harvest of the best. Perhaps then, the present challenges (poor funding, obsolete equipment, poor remuneration of staff, large turnover of Chief Executives which perhaps has adversely affected the nation’s deadline for transition from analogue to digital broadcasting) confronting the industry, will find its way to the front burner, and stare decision makers in the eye, towards taking effective action.

     

    I’m glad that the brief of NIBRA is not only to give awards, but to also embark on immense capacity building, training and re-training of broadcasters in areas of their specialization to improve all facets of the broadcasting industry. It is my hope that the governments, organized private sector, and all well meaning Nigerians will give their support for a sustainable impression.