Foremost filmmaker and former chairman of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), Chief Eddie Ugboma has said that filmmakers and artistes from Nigeria should stop attending film festivals abroad. He said time has come for all practitioners in the country to organise a huge and credible film festival that would attract people across the globe, rather than holding pockets of festivals that portray Nollywood as a sector that lacks unity and organisation.
Ugbomah who turns 70 this year said his dream as a veteran motion picture practitioner is to produce films that the world would always cherish, and which could launder Nigeria’s image as a country of talented people with very rich culture. He would celebrate his entrance into the septuagenarian club with a number of programmes, including a film premiere, book launch, launching of Edifosa Foods and induction of 25 more members into the Movie makers Hall of Fame located at Ilogbo area of Lagos.
I’m so grateful to God almighty that I’m 70 and I am planning four programmes to celebrate the occasion, a lecture, a book launch entitled Film of Eddie Ugboma at 70, film premiere of Desert Warrior which tells the story of how the Fulanis entered Nigeria through Daura. It’s an adaptation of a book. I read the book at Bayero university, entitled Ba Chita, an authentic story of how Fulani came to Nigeria through Niger and Chad.
There would also be a food concert. I intend to set up Edifona Food Foundation, this is because everybody in this in this world now is fighting for food and shelter, I want to fast track that by setting up a fish pond and create food for people. The fifth programme would be to induct 25 more members into the Hall of Fame. Already we had 108 members.
$200 million grant by FG
That money is actually a loan to encourage practitioners in the small scale sector, with entertainment as the trust. And the mistake we always make about the youth is that it is dangerous to entrust huge sums of money into the hands of young people. For example, no sane person would give the loan to a 24 year old boy, who has probably just graduated and is not yet matured to know how to invent money into film. A 10 year old boy can be a musician or a designer or painter but not a film maker. It would be wrong to give such huge amount to someone under 30 or 35 to shoot a film. So I expect producers and directors who are already experienced to apply for the loan with the hope of shooting good and meaningful films. For me, I’ve applied for only N1.5 million to shoot as film called Niger Delta and I hope to be considered. After the shooting of the film which will come in 35mm, I will retire from active film making.
Advantages of the grant
The loan is expected to serve as an investment and bring in more money into the industry. We actually need up to one billion dollars in Nigeria because of the huge number of creative people and the large entertainment market we have. For example, if one would shoot a good film that can stand the test of time in any part of the globe., you need not less than 20 million dollars. A film like Titanic cost about $200million. So asking for a loan of 1.5million dollars is a big joke, and mainly because I know that payment for location and artistes are rather cheaper. But most importantly I do not aim for Oscar. I want to produce a film that they whole world would be craving to see. The world came looking for Fela’s music as he never went to Oscars or Grammy. He made his music in Nigeria and the whole world accepted it. That is the same spirit we should adopt for film.
Foreign film festivals
Nigerian filmmakers should stop visiting the foreign film festivals. Many of our filmmakers and artistes spend fortunes to attend these festivals abroad and many of them return with nothing rather than use the money we have to develop what we have here. So my point is that we should create our own festival which is good and acceptable and let people come from all over the world to be part of it. I know we have several festivals such as AMAA, Abuja, BOB etc but let all these people come together to form a very big film festival that the whole world would be proud to be part of.
Learning from Indian experience
Indians shoot 35 & 70 mm. But because of their films are always about love, which may not win awards in international festivals. But because of the massive market with a huge population of one and a half billion people, Indians don’t allow foreign films into their country, If America shoots a good film, Indians would shoot their own version. They have Indian version of Spider Man and their version of James Bond and their version of Capon. What the Indian government does is to give tax rebate to filmmakers so that people easily invest into films and the audience is readily available to buy the films.
Censorship/Classification of Movies
There’s a big mistake that the Nigerian Film and Video Censor Board (NFVCB) is making about Nigerian movies is about censoring films. This is wrong, the right thing to do is to classify film, nor censoring them. The only thing is for filmmakers to be sensitive that they don’t start religion or political wars.
Filmmakers are free to make their statement without any censorship but they should not use their works to instigate religion crises or political wars, it’s wrong to control creativity. In Nigerian we have a lot of epic stories and folk tales from which we can produce films. So our government should only make the money available and leave the filmmakers to their creativity government should not attempt to control creativity.
Crises in Nollywood
In as much as I’m in support of the $200 million grant to entertainment sector by the Federal Government, it is so sad that the fund is causing a lot of ripples in the entertainment sector. The industry is now in total mess because everybody wants a bit of that national cake. But the money is not a dash or cake but a loan. The loan should be given mainly to experienced filmmakers working together with the younger ones. Secondly, the loan should be given to world class promoters who can handle our musicians who can sing good music that can earn us respect in the globe. Government should therefore ensure that the loan is not abused by giving it to people who will make nonsense of it.
Nollywood
The main problem in Nollywood is divide and rule. My grouse is that we tend to divide ourselves by creating different factions in the same industry which ought to be united. After Nollywood, some people have come out with the idea of Kannywood and Yoruwood etc. but art anywhere in the world has no language, so we should all appreciate arts, instead of creating divisions within the same entertainment industry.
Arts is so broad that every section of the creative sector has a contribution to make. We don’t have to be selfish in our attitude to promote the arts. Let government give support to the real professionals, I mean producers and filmmakers who are properly trained and have track records of good movies and films.
In Nollywood today, money is the root of all evil, those who used to bring money into the industry murdered it by over producing. They killed the hen that lays the golden egg because they want to eat the eggs as quickly as possible. Instead of shooting a film in a month or two, they were shooting 25 in a in a week and because economy is bad, people no longer buy the films worse still, the producers started moving about pirating films.
They would shoot a film in Nigeria, and move it abroad, subtitle them in foreign languages and started selling. Above all, those cable stations like HiTV, Africa Magic, have helped in no small way to kill Nollywood. These channels pay peanuts to producers only to show their films on 24 hour basis. So once, people can watch the films so cheaply on Africa Magic, nobody is prepared to buy films from the market any longer.
