allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Zack Orji's Next Move And His Verdict On Nollywood (Page 1 of 3)

Mr. Orji, what brings you to Los Angeles?

Well, I came to LA for the annual Nollywood Convention, and also to be at the Los Angeles Film Festival and to receive a presentation from the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board, NFVCB.

Were your expectations met?

Zak Orji and friends

Yes. All my expectations have been met so far. The convention this year was very thought-provoking, very interesting.

And the good thing is in this particular convention we also had a very strong government presence by way of the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board, ably represented by the DG, Mr. Emeka Mba, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Communications, distinguished Senator Ayogu Eze, and also the Chairman of the House Committee on Information and Communications, Hon. Dino Melaye.

They were all present at this years convention and also attended some sessions of the Los Angeles Film Festival.

I think this is very interesting; this is very desirable because it gives them first hand contact with industry players not only in Nigeria but elsewhere in the world and also gives them first hand information about probably what they need to do as far as Nollywood is concerned.

On a personal basis can you let me in on some of your observations both at the Nollywood Convention and the Los Angeles Film Festival?

Well, for the Nollywood Convention I think there should be more participation by industry practitioners and I understand the constraint.

Are you talking of Nigerian industry practitioners?

Yes, from the Nigerian end and also those in the Diaspora here in the United States and elsewhere. I know the foundation has been faced with constraints of finance, of funding and it will be necessary for them to start planning well in advance for next year and then begin to stretch their hands to reach out to corporate organisations in Nigeria who would like to identify with this kind of thing to gain more mileage for themselves, both locally and internationally.

Such organisations can then also provide some funding and enable the foundation to do the annual convention in a way that will be more impactful, in a way that will generate more interest, in a way that will enable more industry people, both from Nigeria and other parts of the world to be part of the convention. It will now provide a greater platform for collaboration which can only take the industry forward.

What of the LA Film Festival?

The LA Film Festival also opened our eyes to a lot of things. We attended some of the Finance Conferences and other conferences at the festival and we came to one definite conclusion: the industry here in Hollywood in America and also elsewhere in the world face the same challenges that we face- challenges of funding for filmmakers, challenges of funding faced by filmmakers, the desire to have your film well distributed, the scramble for participation in certain designated and well sort after film festivals like the Sundance Film Festival which receive thousands and thousands of entries but at the end of the day, only a handfuls are selected for screening at the festival.

We discovered that it is the sort of challenges we face back home that they also face here but it is

Mr.Zack Orji,

more complicated here raising fund for any particular project you want to do.

Some projects do not necessarily attract any kind of funding because the funding organisations do not consider it worth their while; for example, any project that is less than $10m, most of the big funding organisations are not interested because they look at the cost they are going to incur in terms of promoting the film, in terms of advertising, you know the cost attached to distribution, the cost attached to theatrical releases, they look at the whole thing.

A film that cost $5m could cost about $35m to get distributed. They look at all these and just opt for high budget projects.

So, this also creates problems for independent filmmakers in terms of sourcing funds. This just makes me come to the conclusion that we should appreciate what we have at home and then give it everything we have got.

It has also made me come to the conclusion that we should not go cap in hand begging, begging people from Hollywood to help us project our own industry, help us do this, help us do that, help us train our people - when we make statements like that, when we make requests like that, they just sit back and look at us as people who are very unserious, very naïve, people who don't know exactly what they want because it is the same challenges that they face.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories