Nollywood filmmaker, Kunle Afolayan has taken a swipe at the organizers and the idea behind the Nollywood @ 20 celebrations led by the president of the Association of Movie Producers, Zik Zulu Okafor.
The actor, who hails from the popular Ade Love film making family took to his Facebook account early on Thursday, November 28, 2013 after posting a picture with the caption, This is what I call ”NOLLYWOOD AT 37″.
In his take on the celebrations, which honoured his late father on November 27, 2013, he wrote, “Here the Sound track poster of the First Yoruba film made in Nigeria titled “AJANI OGUN” Produced and directed by Dr Ola Balogun and featured my father Late Adeyemi Afolayan aka Adelove, Late Duro Ladipo and many others. I guess “NOLLYWOOD AT 20″ signifies the era of low quality and straight to VCD films and not the beginning of film production in Nigeria. Tunde Kelani has been in the film/TV industry for over three decades. Can we tag him as part of Nollywood at 20 even with all the great films from Mainframe stable like “Ti Oluwa ni’le, Ayo ni mofe, Oleku, Saworo-ide and many others. I also want to believe that a new era began since 2009 when films like ‘Figurine’ and ‘Ije’ were produced. What should this era be called then and when are we going to celebrate those who actually set the ground for all of us to step on… Afolayan argued that, really, what his colleagues were celebrating was an era of ‘substandard products’. “Nollywood @ 20 signifies the era of low quality…” he asserted.
Indeed, the idea of Nollywood at 20 has been faulted. It’s either the promoters of the event didn’t do their research well or intentionally doesn’t want to reckon with history. If ‘Living in Bondage’ produced in 1993 by Kenneth Nnaebue is seen as when Nigerian movie industry started because it’s the first home video produced in English Language, then the organizers and promoters of the event are saying movies shot in indigenous languages are not part of Nollywood. If they are, the organizers will reckon with efforts of the pioneers before blindly christening an event Nollywood at 20.
Some key players in the movie industry including factional President of Association of Nigerian Theater Practitioners, Jide Kosoko, have thrown their weights behind Afolayan. The major argument is that any attempt to celebrate Nollywood at 20 is re-writing the history of the industry.
The Nigerian movie industry has come of age. The first ‘commercial’ film in Nigeria, ‘Ajani Ogun’, was shot by Adeyemi Afolayan (Ade Love) in 1976 while the first home video titled ‘Ekun’ was shot in 1988 by the late Muyideen Alade Aromire. The phrase, ‘Nollywood at 20’ is, however, nauseating to top players in the industry.
Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka had once observed that the term Nollywood is borrowed from Hollywood. Albeit warning against unnecessary copycatism, the Professor’s analysis may be unpopular. The entire Nigerian movie industry has accepted the term ‘Nollywood’ as a common identity.
The Nigeria film industry has different associations from different geo- political zones of the country. There is the English language industry, Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) which has its main production center in Lagos and is dominated by people from the south east of Nigeria. While the language used is English, the stories in these films mostly reflect the ideology of the Igbo people of the region. The second industry is much, much older, and consists of the indigenous Yoruba language movies. This can be traced back to the Nigerian feature film industry of the 60’s and 70’s, up until the economic downturn meant that people could no longer afford to produce feature films anymore and started making videos instead. The Yoruba movie industry has an association called Association of Nigerian Theater-Arts Practitioners (ANTP). Then you have another industry in the Northern part of the country now known as Kannywood. By the Hausa population, it has a lot of Islamic influences. There are also pockets of smaller production, like in the south around the Niger Delta. These are also indigenous, mainly made in the Edo language. Each of these has its own associations for the industry professionals.
The meeting point is supposed to be the Motion Picture Council of Nigeria, in which all the different areas are represented for the purpose of regulating the industry and lobbying the government but nothing seems to be happening.
Global Excellence
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