THE year, 2014, witnessed developments on several fronts in the regulatory sphere of Nigeria’s film industry where the National Film and Video Censors Board, led by Ms Patricia Bala, holds sway.
The highpoint of these from the point of view of a media landscape driven by a pathological craze for ‘front page’ and ‘sensational’ news was the spat over the movie, Half of a Yellow Sun.
It’s quite edifying that the Board capped the year with a pioneering search for common grounds in the classification of films across national boundaries in Africa. This came in the form of the First International Conference on Film Classification in Africa, hosted by the Board, at the prime Tinapa Resort, in Cross River State.
The spat over the movie adaptation of the epic novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun, far from diminishing the Board, did much to project and position it as a serious, watchful, diligent and competent media watchdog.
What should have been a straightforward compliance issue got enmeshed in the pervasive distrust and suspicion of public sector motives by private sector stakeholders. The Board’s simple clear directive that was dutifully communicated to appropriate individuals concerned became a ploy to stir up a buzz around the said film, since as they say, no publicity is bad publicity.
It’s not out of place to draw attention to how The Interview, a movie by Sony Pictures, almost brought the US and North Korea to conflict. Hence, the Censors Board’s pre-emptive stance in the Half of a Yellow Sun saga can even be better appreciated.
The hacking of Sony and the threat to moviegoers over The Interview had shown what could happen where no formal safeguards over movies exists. In such cases, an offended party without any formal channel to remedy the injury can take the law into its hand like North Korea whose leader’s assassination is the subject of The Interview.
With respect to Nigeria, here is a film adaptation of a novel set around the 1966 crises and the subsequent civil war in Nigeria. These are emotive subjects. Chinua Achebe’s There Was A Country had earlier touched a raw nerve by recalling the events of that period and then came a movie set in that painful era making potentially inflammatory remarks about the conduct of the Nigerian Army.
The glee with which moviegoers flocked to the cinemas in August to watch the film belies the socio-political disruption that might have followed its unfettered release given the military campaign in the North-East of the country.
The West may choose to downplay the provocation inherent in plotting a serving president’s assassination as in the case of The Interview and focus only on the resultant hacking and threats, but the crises have re-opened the debate over whether censorship has become anachronistic and out dated.
That same argument reared its head at Tinapa Resort, Cross River State, during the First International Conference on Film Classification in Africa, organised by the NFVCB.
Ms Patricia Bala, the Director General, had given the objectives of the conference to include: the development of a template for region-wide criteria for movie classification; the building of consensus on movie classification standards among African nations; projecting the core values and norms of African societies through movie classification and protecting the young and vulnerable from harmful consequences of dysfunctional classification practices
The 2-day gathering which lasted from 27th-29th October, brought together intellectuals and film practitioners to try to chart a course for film ratings in Africa. The speakers included Prof Zana Akpagu, the Dean of the Arts Faculty of the University of Calabar who gave the keynote; Prof JK Obatala, the popular astronomer and newspaper columnist; Tunde Onikoyi of Kwara State University, Dr Cas Onukogu from Enugu, Prof Andrew Uduigwomen, Abakedi Dominic Effiong and Mr. Tam Fiofori.
A three-man strong Kenyan delegation was present to underpin the international nature of the gathering while greater international attendance was dampened by the Ebola Virus scare from which Nigeria was just recovering then.
The need for the harmonization of movie ratings across national boundaries in Africa had been underscored by a Benin-based filmmaker, Mr. Peddy Okao, who spoke of how a particular film is differently graded by different countries as well as the continent’s major satellite broadcaster. A film rated “18” for adult viewership in Country A can get a “G” for general viewership in Country B. With cross-border trade, this differential ratings of the same movie later ends up in one country with substantial confusion for the consumers.
The highlight of the many postulations from the eggheads was in Prof. Obatala’s paper, where he canvassed the view that “the main criterion for classifying African film must be biological” premised on the primacy of the reproductive system and supported by the Evolutionary Psychology that man is driven by the pressure to survive and reproduce himself. As Earth’s aboriginals according to Obatala, African films should promote fertility rites and cooperation since no group can survive alone.
While urging a paradigm shift away from morality in film plots to power, he also deplored the portrayal of human sacrifice in African movies, pointing out that though the practice was huge in Hindu Indian traditions, it didn’t feature in Indian films. According to Obatala, film is not all about entertainment which it only uses to draw attention to its message.
Other insightful postulations came from Tam Fiofori, the ace photojournalist and filmmaker, who held that videography, the art of shooting for home video release, is, by nature, venal unlike cinematography for the big screen. He traced the original motive of Nigerian filmmaking to the need to uplift our culture which the White colonialists portrayed wrongly in their own films. He pooh-poohed videography as a simpler art form which has engendered laziness in Nollywood, unlike Nigeria’s first generation filmmakers who were intellectuals. Fiofori posited that nudity is not un-African but it should be portrayed in non-erotic ways. He emphasised that where there was self-censorship, the formal one will not be necessary.
Other speakers touched on issues surrounding censorship and classification of movies in contemporary Nigeria. Prof. Tunde Onikoyi, in his paper on “Politically Committed Films in Nigeria: Toward a Standard Classification Framework in Africa”, stated that older film cultures in Africa despised Nollywood because of its use of the home movie format. He classified the general political themes in Nollywood to include: traditional rulership, crime thriller, melodrama and core political films. He also advocated the enlargement of preview panels to include journalists/film critics, film teachers, parents, psychologists and lawyers.
In his paper on Impact of Film Classification and Censorship on Film Business in Africa, Dr. Cas Onukogu canvassed for a general agreement on the philosophy behind Nollywood as well as a research-based classification regime and the listing of common values. He suggested that censorship be de-emphasized while concentration should be on classification and monitoring.
In the communiqué, the Conference among others, advocated the listing and promotion of cherished African values by filmmakers and sustenance of the initiative to deepen the ideals of pan- African integration.
The forum also agreed that film in Africa should emphasise message above entertainment, given the subliminal underlying potentials of artistic production and consumption and that since film is a knowledge-based industry, the filmmakers should challenge themselves not to lose sight of creating desirable value chain.
The Conference also advocated a research-based classification system in Africa to identify with viewer preference.
– By Mike Ekunno
