NOLLYWOOD URGENTLY NEEDS INFRASTRUCTURE

Whenever Nigeria is mentioned anywhere abroad, three things mostly comes to mind. These are in no particular order, football, music and Nollywood.

Last November at the African International Film Festival: Indigenous 2.0, I sat with joy as I listened during a masterclass with the stars of  Shanty Town to Nancy Isime

She remarked that she was pleasantly surprised to see the number of fans she had abroad. To buttress her point, she highlighted that she wasn’t talking about fans in Canada, United Kingdom or the United States of America. No, she was referring to fans in Spain and Mexico.

This for me was an important piece of information. It showed that people outside Nigeria had as much interest in Nollywood as they did in our other famous offerings i.e football and music. Nonetheless, there are infrastructural problems that has limited and stunted what promises to be a outstanding level of growth. Nollywood is pregnant and is in its enceinte stage, in what industry practitioners are certain will be a positive delivery to the superlative level of delivery we have always dreamt of.

However, the egregious effects of piracy, a terrible economic and intellectual offence is debilitating to the hardwork and emotions that industry practitioners put in.

I cannot recall who, but someone once remarked to my hearing that two days after he released his movie, traffic vendors tried to sell him a pirated VCD of his movie.

Obviously, piracy in Nigeria is a well oiled machinery, and has moved from the traditional sales of pirated VCDs and DVDs to uploading on telegram groups and dedicated websites.

Of course, copyright infringement laws are poorly enforced in Nigeria, making it feel like they are non existence. This has affected the quality of resources that we have invested in filmmaking in Nigeria, particularly as it is evident that they would be unlawfully leaked to the public. Due to the debilitating effects of piracy, many producers often find it difficult to even recoup their capital. How then would we make actual progress when breaking the bank to shoot a movie is akin to economic suicide for producers and production companies?

How would we thrive when notorious pirates live large, with no fear of the comeuppance of their nauseating actions?

There is also the factor of poor or nonexistent cinema facilities. There are fields for footballers, stages for musicians, but I can confirm that there are cities in Nigeria without a single cinema.

As a matter of fact, cinematic experience for most Nigerians is elitist, even for those we consider to be bourgeoisie. In February, just before the Inside Nollywood International Film Festival and Awards, I randomly called or texted over a hundred facebook friends, asking them about their cities, if they had cinemas, or if they had visited one recently, or even before.

The answers were not encouraging.

Media houses and producers urgently need to collaborate with stakeholders, and must liaise with relevant authorities to ensure there are cinemas everywhere that are affordable and accessible to most Nigerians. This can happen, I know it.

Finally, like we have always highlighted and advocated for at Inside Nollywood, collaborations within the industry is still missing from most practitioners.

How can you host a movie premiere and invite only your friends in the industry?