The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Filmmakers

  • AMAA 2017: Lagos ready to welcome global filmmakers

    LAGOS State Government has disclosed its readiness to play a good host to local and international visitors coming for the 13th edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) today.

    The pan-African event which will hold at the Convention Centre of the Eko Hotel is expected to bring award nominees and professionals in the film industry from over 50 countries within and outside Africa.

    Permanent Secretary Ministry of Information and Strategy, Mr. Folarin Adeyemi, and his counterpart at the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Mr. Adewale Ashimi, during a briefing with the organising team, said Lagos as the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria and the entertainment hub of Africa is ready as the host state to make coming to Lagos an exciting experience for visitors.

    “As the centre of Excellence whatever Lagos is involved with must be done excellently and we have enough to showcase to the outside world in Lagos.  We will showcase the business opportunities and very conducive investment environment that government of Lagos is working hard to create. Visitors will see the transformation going on under the leadership of Governor Akinwumu Ambode. The Ministry of Tourism has marked out tourism sites and locations in Lagos that international guests will see. As a megacity, Lagos is being transformed by the visionary leadership of the Governor to be a home for business and leisure. We have a government that believes in entertainment and the creative industry as a viable contributor to the economy of the state. Lagos is ready to welcome AMAA nominees and guests,” he said.

    The organisers of the awards have announced Nollywood A-list Actress Nse Ikpe-Etim as the sole host of the night, a departure from the usual two people as hosts of events.

    Director of Administration, Mr. Tony Anih, said Nse has all it takes to host the show.

    “Nse is a vivacious actress and one of the best on the continent,” said Anih.

    “She is will bring her creativity and positive energy on board and we are sure she will do a good job.”

    In the same vein, Afro Juju star, Sir Shina Peters, Ugandan pop star, Ykee Banda, Paul Play Dairo and the Maestro Band will entertain guests and nominees during the show.

  • Filmmakers to attain mni, as Film Corporation partners NIPSS

    Filmmakers to attain mni, as Film Corporation partners NIPSS

    As part of his drive to reverence the business of filmmaking in Nigeria, newly appointed Managing Director of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, has entered a partnership that will enlist filmmakers into the country’s policy formation cadre.

    Maduekwe, who disclosed this to newsmen, explained that the partnership, which is between the NFC and National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, will earn motion picture practitioners’ nominations for its annual senior course programme, designed to empower participants on government’s critical development policies and implementation strategies.

    The NIPSS is a policy formation center for bureaucrats, private sector leaders, Army officers, and medium-rank and senior civil servants. Most policymakers in Nigeria have attended the NIPSS; including former Nigerian Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida; former Director General of Nigeria Policy Study, Comrade Ajayi Olusegun, and anti-corruption campaigner, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.

    The agreement was reached during a courtesy visit by the NFC boss to the Acting Director General of NIPSS, Mr. Jonathan Mela Juma on Friday, May 26, 2017.

    A release signed by Head, Public Affairs of the NFC, Mr. Brian Etuk, stated that, “As part of the decisions of the two federal government institutions, a Think-Tank National Conference on Nigeria’s Creative Industry has been scheduled to hold in the third quarter of the year.”

    Etuk said participants at the conference to be jointly organised by NFC and NIPSS, which will hold at the latter’s institute in Jos, will be drawn from motion picture practitioners, scholars, researchers, relevant government and private institutions.

    “The conference will provide government and other stakeholders, the opportunity and platform to design the national policy frame work for the sustainable development of the sector and bring it to par and even surpass other creative economies.”

    Juma, in his presentation, was said to have acknowledged that the Nigerian creative industry, especially the motion picture sector has the capacity to change the narratives on Nigeria which has been classified as the single and fastest growing economy in Africa.

    “Nigeria’s portraiture as a nation of hardworking and enterprising people should be promoted using the film medium,” he said, adding that “Motion picture production activities should be adequately supported in order to position it as next to agriculture in terms of income for government and as a window to boost employment across the country.”

    The NIPSS boss endorsed the various initiatives being taken by NFC to reposition its subsidiary and training arm, the National Film Institute (NFI), with a promise to assist it with faculty resources to enhance learning and research in motion picture production.

    During the meeting, the NFC chief also canvassed for federal and state government agencies to partner, design programmes and projects that will empower Nigerians sustainably, noting that the NFC was desirous of instituting enduring policy and strategic framework to aid the growth of the Nigerian motion picture industry.

    The Nigerian film sector, Maduekwe said, was in dire need of the establishment of the proposed National Film Development Fund (NFDF) to provide a formal funding window for film production activities, just like other sectors of the nation’s economy.

     

  • Filmmakers urged to portray culture in positive light

    The need for the Nollywood filmmakers to portray the country’s culture in a positive light has been mooted. Making the call at the last edition of Yoruba Lakotun, a cultural programme, Israel Bolaji, a Lagos-Based Public Relations professional stated that this is important so as not to scare people off the culture.

    He said, “the didactic lessons of the culture should be portrayed more to the outside world than the inimical acts. The world is desirous of seeing noble contents from the Yorubas and we must produce great contents that will attract patronage by those in the Diaspora.”

    Also speaking at the event which held at Ethnic Heritage Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos, writer, Sunday Folorunso Adeniyi called on Yorubas to stop committing syntactic errors in the Yoruba language, especially with proverbs and other clichés.

    Adeniyi, who is the author of Esin Obinrin, Owu Iyagbon and other books, stated that, “Yoruba sayings have been bastardized by many people and this alteration affect the meaning of either the proverb or the cliché. In fact, many times, the meaning is lost because of the inappropriate word used. These sayings have become engrained in our daily lives that people do not know the actual saying anymore.”

    He explained that “some of these proverbs that have historical background while others are phonological. The infiltration of foreign languages into Yoruba culture is also one of the factors responsible for these syntactic errors. Yoruba writers are charged to be versed in the culture and language in order to correct these syntactic errors for posterity.”

    Another Special Guest at the edition, Otunba Lekan Ajirotutu, a Yoruba broadcaster and lecturer, said that there are a lot of people who do not understand Yoruba language and culture.

    Yoruba Lakotun is a quarterly live audience participatory programme where different creative arts are done and an interview session with a Yoruba writer. The show is hosted by Olutayo Irantiola.

  • Ovation, as new MD of Film Corporation engages filmmakers

    Ovation, as new MD of Film Corporation engages filmmakers

    THERE have been conjectures of another misfit in the new leadership of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC). But stakeholders in the motion picture industry appeared stunned, last Thursday, during their first meeting with the new Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, at the agency’s Lagos Office, where he showed profound understanding of the challenges facing the film sector.

    Every last line of Maduekwe’s speech was greeted with applause, and what more; a standing ovation at the end of the engagement.

    Now, it appears their fears have been allayed, because the new man spoke to their situations, and assured them of, not just a listening ear, but of government policies that will make their businesses thrive.

    According to Maduekwe, “Our film industry today is a net contributor to our national income. Its key performance indicators in the economy clearly show that if properly funded, it can become the single largest contributor to our national income. Indeed, I can confidently say here that we can move from the present two percent to over 10 percent net contribution to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) within the next five years.”

    He noted that although the film industry has witnessed remarkable growth and development within the last one decade, its contribution to the national economy and job creation is yet to be fully tapped. “To achieve this,” he said, “we must in the first instance integrate the Nigerian film industry into the present administration’s economic diversification agenda,” adding that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is serious in reducing dependence on oil.”

    On the need for self-regulation among practitioners, the NFC honcho said, “I will work with you to ensure that MOPICON (Motion Picture Practitioners Council of Nigeria) comes out in a way that, globally, it would be accepted as a regulatory body of repute.”

    The MOPICON draft bill has been forward to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who at the beginning of his tenure inaugurated a review committee for same.

    Maduekwe identified some of the challenges of the film industry to include obsolete law, funding, professionalism/ethics, lack of film production facilities, poor distribution and exhibition networks, as well as piracy and intellectual property protection.

    As a way of broadening the distribution platforms, the new NFC man harped on the use of internet and digital marketing as the present and future of movie business. “To advance the boundaries so far established,” he said, “we will collaborate and encourage the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and other service providers to have a dedicated bandwidth access for Nigerian movie industry streaming and marketing. Through this strategy, multiple revenue streams to the creativity of our motion picture practitioners will be better enhanced.”

    On the much talked about piracy scourge, he said: “I believe you will give me your candid and professional advice on the best ways of solving this problem, which I believe has been in the drawing board for over 15 years. We would need to deploy a combination of stiffer legislation and technology to drastically reduce the presence of piracy demons in our industry. It makes nonsense of your creativity, it stiffens your creativity. If by the time you’ve burnt your midnight oil and come up with fantastic work, some other folks in Alaba market just feast on it – or Onitsha market, Kano market, Abuja market or even in Maiduguri market; you can’t rule it out – even Sambisa forest – and mass produce it and sell to Chad and other places – we are saying no to this.  The anti-piracy law by the government shall be on the front burner of the current NFC.”

    He expressed optimism for the positive contributions of Nollywood to the economy and cultural advancement of the country, saying; “South Africa is known for one of the best artillery bomb in the world, but here, we are still producing little firearm armament. But do you know that from Nollywood, you can change the narrative? In the same manner that John Kennedy, who was not a scientist but believed in America said before the end of the decade ‘we’ll put a man in the moon’. It came to pass, did it not? I am standing before you, I am not a professional like you, but we have shared commonality. I am a medical doctor by training. But medicine is not just a science, it is also an art. I and you have shared commonality. I and you believe in one thing, which is it can be great. I and you believe that we can turn things around and make this country greater than it is today, using movies to drive our economy, using movie to drive our technological breakthrough, using movies to drive our social re-engineering in the way we relate to one another, out inter-personal skills, our conduct to one another, using movies to drive away insurgency in our land, all these things are possible.”

    The second phase of the stakeholders’ forum was the introduction of panellists, drawn from among the filmmakers, who engaged other participants on possible solutions to the problems bedevilling the film sector. The exercise, according to Maduekwe, was to develop a roadmap for a new direction in Nollywood.

    “I’ve decided that we shall form three panels among you here to discuss some of these challenges to the Nigerian film industry and urgently come up with practical and applicable recommendation that will form part of our road map to government on how to develop this industry and integrate it into the socio-economic policy of this PMB administration,” he said.

    The NFC boss, who has chosen to hit the ground running, said, “This is action time. The panel will focus on the challenges in the film industry and proffer solutions…Today-today; not tomorrow,” he urged, saying; “No be action una say? We have rolled sound, we have rolled camera, so now is action… We need robust argument, and the audience could oppose the panel when necessary. Let me tell you something, my minister; the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has given me the mandate to come with a roadmap for a new direction in the movie industry that we can take to Mr. President and Mr. President will sign. So, whatever you say today is being recorded so you will not tell me you were not taken along. I want to take every body along!”  He said to a roaring applause.

    The panellists include Mrs. Uche Nwuka, Group Head, Creative Industry Desk at the Bank of Industry (BoI), Ms. Chioma Ude, Founder/CEO of Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF), Nollywood actress Hilda Dukubo and film producer Opa Williams.

    Others are filmmakers Chris Ekejimbe, Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen, Paul Obazele, Emma Isikaku, Uzor Amadi, Baba Agba, Mrs Peju Adeyemi of Lagos State Film Censorship Board, President of Association of Movie Producers (AMP) Mr. Ralph Nwadike and Chairman of Audio Visual Rights Society, Mr. Bond Emeruwa.

    Other filmmakers at the event include Chief Eddie Ugboma, Kunle Afolayan, Iyen Agbonifo, and Mykel Parish.

  • AFA, Imo State to train young filmmakers

    AFA, Imo State to train young filmmakers

    Mother company to Africa Movie Academy Award (AMAA), the Africa Film Academy (AFA), is partnering the government of Imo State to train youths from the Eastern Nigerian state who desire a career in filmmaking.

    AFA said in a statement on Wednesday that the training which will be intensive, is scheduled to run from April 25 to May 10, 2017 in Owerri, the Imo State capital.

    In the statement signed by founder of AFA, Ms. Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, facilitators will include Segun Arinze, Paul Obazele, Tony Anih among others.

    “At the end of the training which will cover script-writing, photography, editing, acting, cinematography, sound, lighting etc, the students are expected to produce short films that will give practical expression to what they will learn during the programme,” she said.

    According to Anyiam-Osigwe, the training is meant “to introduce the prospective youths to how they can start a career in the film industry and technical production and open them to the possibilities that exist.”

    Continuing, she said: “At the end of it, we expect participating students to take their interests to the next level through further education in higher institutions and other institutes where they can acquire more and in-depth knowledge. We want to say that the Imo State Government has been kind enough to sponsor 100 students apart from providing venue and other logistics for the training and this is because of the interest of Governor Rochas Okorocha to empower the youths and create job opportunities for them. Diamond Bank as part of its CSR initiative is also sponsoring 10 students to the training while Africa Magic is also a strategic partner to make this a very successful one,” she said.

  • What ‘Okafor’s Law’ is teaching filmmakers

    What ‘Okafor’s Law’ is teaching filmmakers

    Nollywood is witnessing a legal battle over who owns the story of Omoni Oboli’s latest movie, ‘Okafor’s Law’. Contesting that the movie is his story is Canada-based scriptwriter Jude Idada who had first gone to court in September 2016, suing Omoni Oboli for copyright infringement and claiming he was neither remunerated nor given credits for his work, which eventually turned out to be ‘Okafor’s Law’. The defendants are Dioni Visions Entertainment, Omoni Oboli and FilmOne distributions.

    In 2015, Raconteur Productions gave FilmOne Ltd a script for the same name for a co-production. Initially, FilmOne agreed to co-produce the movie with Raconteur but FilmOne later withdrew from the agreement. However, Idada raised alarm that it was his script that was turned into the movie, ‘Okafor’s Law’.

    Idada in an interview last year said he avoided blowing the matter in court not to ‘embarrass’ Nollywood because ‘Okafor’s Law’ was being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

    Some days to the premiere of the movie on March 31, 2017, Raconteur Productions Ltd had filed an ex parte motion seeking an injunction to stop the movie from being premiered. They won and Oboli and her guests returned to their homes. However, when the case was heard on Thursday, March 30, 2017, counsel for the defendant sought for the injunction to be lifted as tickets had already been sold out. The judge granted the counsel’s prayer and the injunction vacated.

    Hence, ‘Okafor’s Law’ premiered and is currently running in the cinemas across the country.

    That an injunction was granted to Raconteur is proof the judge saw the claimant has a prima facie case even though the court vacated the injunction later to allow the movie to be screened in the cinemas.

    It was reported that the defendants posited that should the court rule in favour of Raconteur Productions Limited, the damages will have to be paid from the box office earnings of the film.  However, given that Oboli and FilmOne are spending money on legal fees, there are fears that excuses could crop up about not having money or enough money to settle should Idada be awarded any monetary compensation of the case.

    However, speaking in an interview on the matter, Demilade Olaosun, an entertainment lawyer and legal adviser to frontline entertainers such as Reminisce, Niniola, Teju Babyface, Pasuma and others said one cannot conclude that Idada has lost the suit, as the case is still ongoing. He posited that Idada stands to gain if the movie is allowed to run in the cinemas.

    He said, “The court comes back with a verdict that indeed Omoni Oboli infringed upon his intellectual property rights, the guys that infringed would account to Jude for profit made on all the channels through which the work is distributed.”

    According to Olaosun, among the reliefs which Idada’s lawyers could seek might include that Idada is ‘named the actual creator’ resulting that whoever breached the intellectual property rights would pay a certain percentage to the person that claimed.

    “So if at the end of the day, the court finds that Jude Idada owns the story, to the discretion of the court, the court may order some five, ten or twenty percent of profits to the guy, depending on what his lawyer asks for.”

    While the case is still in court, whichever way it swings, it is a wake-up call for practitioners in Nollywood that Intellectual Property must be taken very seriously.

  • Indigenous filmmakers kick as StarTimes voices Chinese films in Yoruba

    Indigenous filmmakers kick as StarTimes voices Chinese films in Yoruba

    Harping on the fact that functional economies all over the world are known to guard their industries jealously, several indigenous filmmakers and film marketers in Nigeria gathered, last Wednesday, to condemn a current trend whereby Chinese and Indian films are being re-voiced in Yoruba language, saying the act, if not quickly curtailed, is not only capable of eroding Nigeria’s indigenous culture but would also constitute a threat to employment generation which the film industry is noted for.

    The movie stakeholders, under the aegis of Conference of Indigenous Language Films, alleged that StarTimes, a direct-to-home pay-tv station is more culpable of this act, by dubbing thousands of Chinese films in Yoruba and Hausa languages. They described the development as shocking and an attempt by the Chinese to institutionalize their culture at the expense of Nigeria’s.

    Leading other industry veterans such as Prince Jide Kosoko, Alhaji Abdullahi Abdurasak, Barrister Tunji Bamisigbin, Tunji Ojetola, Yomi Fash Lanso and a host of others at a press conference which held at LTV Complex, Ikeja, President of the Theatre Arts and Movie Practitioners Association of Nigeria (TAMPAN), Mr. Dele Odule, urged the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and the National Assembly to wade into the matter by stopping the move.

    He said: “It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of members of the Conference Of Indigenous Language Film Practitioners to address you on an unfortunate situation which, if not quickly curtailed, will not only rob us of the need to sustain and develop our culture, but also of our source of livelihood and by extension, our desire to sustain employment for the several cast and crew members who depend on film production for their daily bread.

    “You may have observed, as you pass by some bus stops in Lagos, a convergence of youngsters watching some Chinese or Indian films that have been dubbed into distorted, embellished and uncouth dialogues in Yoruba language.

    “The more shocking development, gentlemen of the press, is that, there is an attempt by the Chinese to institutionalize this trend, with StarTimes, a direct-to-home pay-tv station now dubbing thousands of Chinese films in Yoruba and Hausa languages.

    “We hereby reject this development in its entirety, and urge the Federal Government and our regulatory agencies to see the danger inherent in this practice and stop the trend.

    “This is totally uncalled for at this time when the Federal Government is looking in the direction of the film industry as a viable alternative to oil in its economic diversification policy. Thus, we are trusting that the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who has often expressed his passion for the film industry and his desire to turn the motion picture sector from a creative industry to a creative economy to see this incursion of Chinese films as a barrier to his dream for our industry.

    “While we believe that the National Film and Video Censors Board should give these types of films a priority in their occasional raid of the film markets for uncensored and illegal movies, we also urge the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to see this as an indirect way of violating the limit of broadcast time stipulated for foreign contents.”

    Odule recalled a 2015 report by leading audit firm, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) which put the worth of Nigerian entertainment and media industry at more than US$4 billion annually, with the prediction that by 2019, the market will be more than twice as big, with estimated total revenue of US$8.1 billion, saying; “How do we attain this feat if foreign companies now want to take advantage of our local market?”

  • Minister urges govs to support filmmakers

    Minister urges govs to support filmmakers

    Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has asked other arms of government to complement Federal Government’s effort by providing an enabling environment for filmmakers in the country.

    Since assuming office, Mohammed has spoken loudly about the potentials in the film sector, describing it as a viable alternative source of revenue to oil and a great employer of labour.

    The Minister who, as part of his routine tour of the film industry, attended the premiere of film, titled ‘My Name is Kadi’ in Abuja, implored Governors to encourage and support movie producers by providing incentives and creating the enabling environment for the Creative Industry to thrive in their respective states.

    He said: “One of the reasons I am here today is that we need to encourage and support the movie industry from whichever part of the country. It’s the same enabling environment that we are going to provide for all of them, but I think the state governments should encourage such filmmakers also by giving them access to grants to help them because this could be very expensive. The state governments will also help by establishing cinema houses to show these films,” he said.

    Alhaji Mohammed said if properly harnessed through regulatory and legislative framework, the film industry has a huge potential to contribute significantly to the development of the economy.

    According to the Minister, “If you look at the GDP of California, which is largely dependent on the Creative Industry, it’s about the sixth in the world. Go to Mumbai in India and other cities, the Creative Industry is the bedrock of their economy.

    “The good news here is that the artists, the film-makers, the musicians have gone far ahead and are today in a domineering position globally,’’ he said.

    He disclosed that government is working with some development partners to provide data and statistics that will encourage the private sector to key into the Creative Industry by investing and making profit.

    He noted that one of the challenges faced by the movie industry in Nigeria is that it’s largely unstructured, given reason government is creating a self-regulatory mechanism for filmmakers through the establishment of the Motion Picture Council of Nigeria (MOPICON) to organise and properly structure the industry.

    Alhaji Mohammed decried the proliferation of guilds in the Creative Industry and said such amorphous structure will not augur well for the industry.

    On the issue of piracy, he said his ministry and that of Justice are partnering to curb piracy, noting that the punishment for piracy needs to be stringent enough to discourage the unwholesome practice.

    “We must protect the intellectual property of our artists. We have laws already in place but there are some people who are of the view that the punishment is not stringent enough,” the Minister noted.

    He also harped on the need to discourage Nigerians from patronizing pirated products through advocacy to create awareness on the dangers of piracy to the nation’s economy.

  • AFRIFF: Hausa filmmakers call for Nollywood collaboration

    AFRIFF: Hausa filmmakers call for Nollywood collaboration

    In a bid to explore the production methodologies, distribution systems and major factors that influence filmmaking in Northern Nigeria, AFRIFF 2016 included a session with Kannywood stakeholders to enlighten the public on the inner workings and challenges of the indigenous industry based in the North.

    The name Kannywood is a term derived from the fact that majority of the movies done in Northern Nigeria are produced in Kano State, while the Hausa being spoken is majorly that of the Kano people. The movies have elements of the Indian story-telling style and started with books and dramas.

    The AFRIFF session had popular Kannywood actors and filmmakers such as Ali Nuhu and Hajia Aisha Haliu as panelists. They spoke extensively about their industry, the challenges, possible ways of tackling the challenges and what roles Nollywood had to play in this transformation.

    The session was moderated by a leading Northern filmmaker, Mr.Sani Muazu.

    According to Ali Nuhu who explained how Kannywood works; “The infusion of dance and music into Kannywood movies is as a result of the Hausa people’s identification of them as part of ways of portraying culture and values and to appeal to this audience, it is important to do what they want. Every Northern filmmaker is cautious of what they put on screen or what they express due to religious and cultural beliefs of the people.”

    “We have an audience but the distribution aspect provides a limitation in terms of returns because if you release a movie in cinemas it might not do well in DVD sales and vice-versa because DVD distribution seems to be our strong point. The collaborative efforts of Kannywood and Nollywood have been quite encouraging so far but we still need more.” He said.

    Aisha Haliu discussed the importance of first identifying the target market before making movies in Kannywood because Nigerians have an affinity for home and tend to always come back home no matter where they go.

    “Due to budget constraints, Kannywood cannot make the sort of internationally accepted movies that would cut across because for now the market is still local. Even the marketers are beginning to dictate what should be shown and how it should be shown in order to achieve the most financial gains off of these movies. Piracy is a major limitation, though the message is getting out but we are not really getting the expected returns.”

  • AFRIFF: DON OMOPE CHARGES YOUNG FILMMAKERS AT MENTORSHIP SESSION

    ONE of the producers of the highly anticipated movie, The Wedding Party, Don Omope, on Wednesday at the AFRIFF Alumni Engagement held at Genesis Deluxe Cinemas doled out a session on career development and integrity. Bringing the best of his professional and personal experiences to bear, he tried to mentor budding and seasoned filmmakers about the nitty-gritty of the filmmaking business and the need to detach friendship from a money-making venture.

    “Don’t put people in your films because they are your friends but because of their talent. When you bring talented people to your crew without them having doubts, you would only come out with something really amazing,” said Omope who is the Head of Film Production and Strategy at FilmOne.

    He also added that understanding how other people think is key to longevity in the movie industry. “What takes you far is how long you can cope with people, start to understand how people think because the way you approach people maters and it goes a long way,” Omope added.

    The award-winning producer however revealed that FilmOne doesn’t work with non-Nigerians on set of movies “because we feel that there are better Nigerians everywhere that can do better.”

    He made a revelation that two companies approached his team at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) asking to remake Taxi Driver as a Hollywood movie

    “I am saying this for the first time in public, but I just have to say it to encourage you people. Two companies in Toronto approached us asking to get an international license to remake Taxi Driver as a Hollywood film,” he revealed.

    In concluding his class on Mentorship, Omope urged the audience; “Spend time learning how not to do things because when you have made enough mistakes what is left is how to correctly do them.”