FOR nearly two hours last Tuesday, filmmakers from different African countries and the Diaspora gathered in Lagos, where they jaw-jawed on cinema business in Africa. The event, African Cinema Business Symposium, which was organised by the African Film Consortium (AFC) and Africa International Film Festival, held at the Silverbird Galleria. It was part of activities for the fifth edition of AFRIFF which is holding in Lagos from November 8 to 15.
Delivering the keynote address on the topic, Strategic Thinking for Developing Values of African Cinema was Professor Hyginus Ekwuazi of the University of Ibadan. The highly respected academic who was also founding director, National Film Institute, Jos and former Managing Director of the Nigeria Film Corporation, went through the creative process of filmmaking, and various details needed to achieve success at it.
Highlighting the challenges which confronts the cinemas as a business in Africa, Ekwuazi blamed the discordant state of Nollywood on the absence of the national film policies. He also summed that the absence of appropriate structure are stifling to the cinema. And, in a bizarre twist, Ekwuazi, a professor of film studies said ‘piracy is the future,’ quoting his friend, saying the pirates would always copy.
“But in nowhere is piracy more the future than within the context of African cinema,” he said.
“If you release straight to the theatre, it will only cause piracy, it will not eliminate it. But if you do it the other way DVD – For every one video legitimately sold in Nollywood, there are nine spawned illegally. But what this means indirectly is that 90 per cent of industry earnings are controlled by the pirates. The point here is piracy becomes endemic.”
Earlier, he had described films as highly perishable goods and filmmakers must be aware of that.
“If the film is not consumed immediately, if doesn’t earn value immediately, then that film is useless,” Ekwuazi said.
He also went on to say that the culture sector is insignificant in many parts of Africa.
“In most African countries and certainly in my own country, cinema is only beginning to become significant with the banks,” said Ekwuazi.
“It is not a bankable thing. It is not aligned with the larger industrial sub-sector. It’s beginning to be but it’s really not.”
Mahmood Ali-Balogun, chairman of Audio Visual Rights Society of Nigeria, who moderated the panel, said that governments of African countries must help grow the cinema business to avoid the overbearing of foreign movies.
Ali-Balogun said governments of European countries like Italy, Germany, France had to intervene to in their respective film industries “to avoid the overbearing of Hollywood as a result of American government pushing their products to the rest of the world.”
The other discussants were Ishmael Ntihabose, president of Rwandan Film Federation, Jackie Motsepe, the chief operating officer of the Kwazulu Natal Commission, South Africa and Zik Zulu-Okafor, president of the Association of Movie Producers (Nigeria)
While both Motsepe and Ntihabose highlighted on government interventions in their various countries, in Zulu’s estimation, the Nigerian government has not ‘done anything.’
“When a new government was formed in 1994, the culture was a very important part of the government,” said Motsepe.
“And film was then seen as an important industry to develop from a cultural point of view.”
She said that this government intervention saw the development and growth of the South African film industry through intervention such as training and providing film funds for filmmakers. Motsepe also said that in 2006, the South African department of trade and industry came up with giving rebates to both local and foreign filmmakers.
Ntihabose, who was in Nigeria for the first time, praised Nollywood for its growth so far, saying Rwanda’s film industry is still in its teething stage. He said Nollywood is very popular in Rwanda and Rwandans pay as much as two US dollars for Nollywood movies. Ntihabose also said it was imperative that African governments be a part of the film industry just as African filmmakers must promote their cultures and historical backgrounds.
Deriding the use of excessive foreign glamour in some African movies, Ntihabose said filmmakers should look inwards in their productions.
“History and culture is worth more than gold to us,” he said, imploring filmmakers present to tell more African stories.
On his approach to getting government to be involved in filmmaking, Ntihabose said: “If government doesn’t come into the industry, they will lose popularity. And they will lose the culture implementation and the history.”
Zulu on his part, started by saluting the heroes of Nigerian film industry such as Ade Love, Hubert Ogunde, Duru Ladipo and Eddie Ugbomah.
“From nothing, we have been able to bring Nollywood to an industry that is worth five billion dollars,” he said. “But I want to get something clear. You know that today, through the streaming, Nollywood would yield 1.25trillion. Government has not done anything till we got to this point. So, what can they do for us now?”
He advised that government should look at the potential of Nollywood and invest in it.
In attendance were AFRIFF delegates and attendees from 35 African countries and 25 non-African countries some of them include Keith Shiri, Victor Okhai, Dapo Oshiyemi, Dayo Balogun, Funlola Aofiyebi, Shaibu Husseini, and Kunle Afolayan.
According to the president of Pan-African Film Consortium, Mykel Parish Ajaere, the session is to position filmmakers for the next level.
