A review of Afolabi Adesanya’s ‘Reel Views’ published by the Nigerian Film Corporation. 180pp; 2012.
READING through Afolabi Adesanya’s Reel Views, you get the feeling that Nigeria’s film industry, better known as Nollywood, has stagnated rather than progress.
A collection of essays and reviews on the Nigerian and African film industry, it is noteworthy that some of the issues raised by the author several years ago are yet to be addressed by practitioners and regulators. They are, in fact, still a bane of the industry renowned globally for its prolificacy and notorious for its disregard for quality.
In some of the essays published as far back as 1984 during Adesanya’s sojourn in journalism before he returned to filmmaking and was appointed the chief executive of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) in 2005, the author examines issues including the distribution, classification and funding conundrums amongst others that, surprisingly, are still being debated at various movie talk shops.
Comprising works published in The Guardian where he was staff writer/photojournalist; Newswatch magazine (photo editor); Nigerian Film/TV Index; THISDAY and Media Review, Adesanya shows that as far as Nollywood is concerned, there are no new developments; it’s the same old issues that are being contended with.
In one of the most striking articles, ‘The Film Industry: Staring or Starring’ published in The Guardian in 1984, the author touches on several issues including film funding. He notes that: “Regrettably, the country’s financial institutions have yet to evolve a loan scheme for the entertainment industry. Bankrolling a motion picture is considered a ‘high risk’ in financial circles because the box office returns are low and slow.” Funding, like all players in the film industry are aware, remains an issue with many financial institutions giving filmmakers a wide berth.
Though a number of producers had thought that the $200 million intervention fund for the creative industry announced by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 would finally resolve funding problems to some extent, the administering body, the Nigerian Import-Export Bank (NEXIM) has made them realise it’s a loan, not a grant. They will still need collateral and fulfil other basic requirements of obtaining a loan.
Some 21 years before his emergence as managing director of the NFC, Adesanya raised a valid point concerning the corporation’s involvement in producing films. He argues that it should be providing institutional support to filmmakers because, “Our experience of parastatals does not encourage confidence in direct production of films by the NFC. The corporation’s best shot would be to grant or guarantee loans for indigenous producers through a federal films finance arrangement, as well as provide technical and artistic expertise for independent producers. The FFF cannot ‘encourage’ producers while at the same time ‘produce’ its own films. The industry is too fragile for ‘encouragement’ through ‘competition.’”
Author of Reel Views and Behind the Scenes, Afolabi Adesanya (right) and the chairman of the presentation ceremony, Frank Nweke (jnr) at the event on Tuesday in Abuja. Inset: Book cover
Unaware then that he would one day head the NFC, Adesanya would be accused of the same offence by Fidelis Duker who organises the Abuja International Film Festival. “Don’t be deceived by the names of supporters on our event brochure. I repeat with emphasis that there is no form of institutional support from any government agencies. The NFC, as constituted, to say the least, is bent on destroying the motion picture industry and I make bold to say it. I even have the feeling that it is because of the Zuma Film Festival, which it organises and which I do not even see as a competitor. NFC is out to kill all other film festivals, as it’s only a few film festivals such as AIFF that are still surviving and it is rather unfortunate. The present management whose function is developmental has unfortunately not been performing its statutory function, which is sad. Nollywood today is at its lowest ebb, but NFC would not revamp it, rather it is wasting millions of tax payers’ money in attending film festivals abroad with empty stand; no films to show, not even in the market or short film corner,” the filmmaker alleged in an interview with a national daily. The NFC, of course, stoutly defended itself against Duker’s accusation, citing various instances of its interventions in the film industry. But it is to Adesanya’s credit that he chose to include this article where he had earlier made some valid observations about the corporation.
There has been always been a clamour for adapting literary works for the screen, especially in this era of slapdash productions and Adesanya aligns himself with proponents in ‘Borrowing a leaf’ written in 1990. He cites Segun Olusola’s ‘Palmwine Drinkard’, ‘Song of a Goat’ and ‘The Trials of Brother Jero’ adapted from works by the late Kola Ogunmola, JP Clark and Wole Soyinka as examples. Cinematographer, Tunde Kelani, who has adapted Akinwumi Isola’s ‘O le ku’, Adebayo Faleti’s ‘Magun: Thunderbolt’ and Bayo Adebowale’s ‘The Virgin’ is a contemporary example of a producer who has successfully adapted books for the screen.
Censorship and correct classification of films over which filmmakers do not see eye-to-eye with the National Film and Video Censors Board, is examined by the author in ‘Cinematographic Policy-Censorship and Standards’ and ‘Decree 85: A flawed good desire’.
Though now the rave in Nollywood, Adesanya appears not to think much of co-productions with Hollywood and other foreign producers back in the day. He questions the wisdom in bringing foreign crews to produce Nigerian films in ‘Foreign eyes, alien hands’. He wondered why the pioneers including Francis Oladele, Ladi Ladebo, Eddie Ugbomah and Ade Love amongst others, preferred foreign cinematographers and directors of photography. “What sort of insight and eye did these foreign directors bring with them to enrich the direction of films set in a milieu different from that in which they were raised? With what sort of eye did the DOPs perceive an alien culture and drama? What native ear had the soundman for ‘an exotic language, music and atmospheric sound’? With what sort of eye and ear did the alien editor assemble the rushes and the final cut,” he writes in 1995. It will be nice to know his current view.
There is no subject too sacred for Adesanya to comment on in ‘Reel Views’ as he analyses, criticises and offers suggestions as the case may be. He touches on the problematic distribution framework in ‘Motion picture distribution and marketing’ where he highlights the role of the distributor, exhibitor, employment opportunities in the sector and the future of the cinema in Nigeria. It is heart warming to note that six years after the author wrote this article, cinemas are being built across the country with producers having realised that they are short changing themselves by releasing straight to DVD and CD instead of exhibiting their works. Though the number of new cinemas is still negligible, all hope is not lost.
The author wears his critic’s hat in the last section of this divided into three sections by reviewing three books on the film industry and some classical Nigerian movies. He reviews Manthia Diawara’s ‘African Film-New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics’; ‘African Cinema-Politics and Culture’ and ‘Nollywood Confidential’ but is at his vintage best in Ola Balogun’s ‘Money Power’ (Owo l’agba); Ade Love’s ‘Taxi Driver’ and Wale Adenuga’s ‘Papa Ajasco’.
A dyed-in-the wool film scholar and practitioner, Adesanya includes some personality profiles and interviews in ‘Reel Views’. There is a must read interview with the doyen of Nigerian theatre, the late Hubert Ogunde and revealing pieces on Clarion Chukwurah, Ladi Ladebo and Joy Lemoine amongst others.
Adesanya has done students, scholars, practitioners and everyone interested in the film industry a favour by compiling his writings over the years into a single book. He gives hitherto unknown insights and offers practical suggestions, going forward, about the film industry. ‘Reel Views’ is a labour of love for which all players in the film industry cannot but be grateful to Adesanya for. It is worth reading.
