INTERVIEW: What I Find Most Attractive In A Man — Genevieve Nnaji

Genevieve Nnaji attends the 13th Annual Essence Black Women In Hollywood Awards Luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on February 06, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California. Image: David Livingston

AZHU ARINZE’S CONVERSATIONS WITH SHOWBIZ STARS

How does it feel to have risen this far within so short a time?

I’m trying to handle it as much as I can. It feels fulfilling. I feel I’m having the best of my time. I feel the Lord is with me. I feel I have been able to make an impact on people and I have a lot of fans and I’m enjoying my life. It feels good.

To what or whom do you owe all that?

God’s gift, talent, determination, pride …

What do you mean by pride? They say it goes before a fall. And now you are saying it is responsible for your success?

You have to have pride to be able to stand the crowd, you have to have pride to be able to stand the intimidation and arrogance of people. Especially people who feel you have to pay dues to get to where you are going. You have to have the pride and stamina to tell them boldly you know what you are doing; they didn’t bring you to the industry, you will leave when you want to and you leave because you want to.

Where do you want to or hope to be in the next 10 years?

In the next 10 years, I know I will be married with kids. But I think it all depends on what God has fashioned out for me. I know I will still be in the entertainment industry or the fashion world or whatever.

What do you like most about stardom?

The fact that it opens doors for you is what I like most about it. You walk into a place and every other person is queuing up for one thing or the other, they just start to recognize you. Oh! come in, come in… it’s actually a door opener for us or for me. It has brought respect, especially when you do what you are doing well. What I hate most about it is the price that we get to pay for stardom- negative publicity, the untrue scandals; actually, the only thing I hate about is the bad press.

What will you say is the worst story ever written about you in the press?

So many bad things. But the one I hated most was the one of Fred Amata and I, which I don’t know where they got it from. It hurt me so much. It was not just fair.

How do you feel anytime you read negative things about your person in the media?

Certainly, I don’t feel good…

What if the stories are true, but maybe you were not expecting them to be published?

It’s rarely been the truth . Maybe a bit of it, but that’s not how it happened. The press never tells the story the way it is. It’s usually a bit from here and a bit from there. For a very long time, they have not written anything true about me…

How did you come into the movie industry?

I have been acting since I was eight in Ripples. that was how I got into acting. For movies, I think that should be 1998 in Most Wanted. I met Torino (Emeka Ojukwu) in a bus and to my greatest surprise, he recognized me, from Ripples, when I was about eight, nine. He asked why I left the industry. He later invited me to this audition- Most Wanted. I got a role, a ‘waka-pass’ and that was it.

But the story we heard was that Kunle Coker brought you in and that both of you even dated?

Yes, Kunle Coker was actually my boyfriend. But he did not bring me into the industry.

What do you find most attractive in a man?

The fact that a man will take me for who I am, not for what he hears or what he believes. I like people who take me for the me they see. That’s the most important thing. And have regard for me. And trust too.

What do you think is the biggest mistake that men make with women?

Everyone makes mistakes. But to me, I will not tolerate any man who

hits women. To me, that’s evil.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I believe in infatuation at first sight. Love is a very strong feeling. It does not just come. People think infatuation is being in love. They are two different things. You don’t know anything yet until you get to meet the person and you begin to fall in love. Not just physically, but externally with the person.

Can you recollect the first time you fell in love?

Yes!

Tell us about it.

I think we met at a show. This was when I was in secondary school and we shared a lot of things in common- singing. It was a case of two compatible people who were so much in love with each other and…

So, what eventually happened?

Like I said, relationships must come and go. You can’t help everything that happens. Some things just happen for no reason .

What’s your definition of love?

Love has to be understanding, caring. Love, to me, is being with somebody for 24 hours without being bored. Love is catching your breath every time you see whoever you are in love with· Love is friendship, love is understanding and love is trust.

Do you believe in being faithful in a relationship?

Yeah! I’m very faithful.

Can you date a fan?

I’ve never dated a fan. And I don’t know if I can. But people come around to toast as per fans. But it’s a matter of nicely telling them off. There are different reasons why fans like or love artistes. So, it actually depends on why my fan loves me. It depends. Although, I don’t think it is advisable to date a fan. The reason being that people are in love with what they see on the screen, not the real you.

What’s your greatest wish?

That God continues to bless me. Especially with the right man and a good family.

What’s your favourite colour?

Blue.

What are your hobbies?

Singing, dancing…

Let’s have your bio-data. People don’t seem to know much about you?

I’m from Aboh-Mbaise in Imo State. I went to Kemistar Nursery and Primary School, Surulere; Methodist Girls High School, followed by one in Ikeja. I kept on moving. But ended up at Girls Secondary School, Akwakuma in Owerri, Imo State.

Why have you not furthered your education?

Life is not the same for everybody. Some people are so lucky, they come out of secondary school and they go straight to university because they have the back-up of people and it’s so easy. It looks simple…mine was different. But I’m determined. Definitely, I’m gonna go back to school. I wanted to make money, I love my money, I cherish my own money. So, I will go back when I’ve made enough. But even while I’m there, I won’t stop working.

Tell us about your parents, what do they do?

My parents are there. My mum is a teacher and my dad is retired.

What was your dad into before his retirement?

He was a bank manager with African Continental Bank (ACB) …I’m the fourth of eight children, the third girl. We are four girls, four boys. I come from a very strong Christian family. And I think that has been able to have an effect on my life, especially since I came into the industry. You see, even when people go out to say all sorts, my mother knows the kind of daughter she has. She knows the limit that I can go.

She must have been devastated when you took in, in your teens?

Well, well …I think so.

What was your childhood like?

My childhood was fun. It was fun. You don’t get to get all that these days.

What’s the greatest complement that has ever come your way?

My complexion.

.......VANGUARD

INTERVIEW: The Ebo Sisters On Debuting Their First Feature Film At Sundance

Adamma Ebo. Image via Voyage LA/Ejime Productions

BY NADIA NEOPHYTOU

Nigerian-American filmmakers Adamma and Adnanne Ebo are premiering their debut feature film Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul, starring Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown at the Sundance Film Festival.

Growing up in Atlanta’s Nigerian community, the church played a big part in the lives of Adamma and Adanne Ebo. So it’s no surprise the identical twin sisters, who founded Ejime Productions (twins in Igbo) together, centered their first feature film around the subject of religion.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul is making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, with Adamma as writer-director and Adanne as producer, alongside the likes of Regina Hall and Sterling K Brown, who star in the film, and Daniel Kaluuya. The film is a satire on for-profit religion, exploring a couple, played by Hall and Brown, who run a Southern Baptist megachurch trying to manage the aftermath of a scandal.

Both sisters were selected as Sundance fellows for the Episodic Lab in 2019, and Adamma was also chosen for the Sundance Screenwriting Intensive with a feature film. Based on a short film that Adamma wrote as part of her thesis while at UCLA, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul has been picking up rave reviews and is one of the hottest titles at this year’s fest.

They both spoke to OkayAfrica about making it and how their Nigerian background influences the work they make.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul tackles religion of the Southern Baptist kind, but are there any similarities with how religion plays out in Nigerian culture that you wanted it to speak to as well?

Adanne: Yeah, it's not that different. It feels extremely similar. It's very performative. It's very big. And it also has some of the not-so-great parts where people want you to abide by certain rules and not question anything as you go along the way. A lot of unchecked power.

Was that the reason why you wanted to make this film – to check that power, so to speak?

Adamma: Yeah, to encourage people to do that and not to be afraid to question things, for sure.

You made the short film, Honk For Jesus, as your thesis project, Adamma. What made you realize it would be good as a full-length feature?

I actually wrote an early draft of the feature before I even made the short and so the feature existed in a different capacity. It was a lot different before I made this short, and I decided that a short would be great as a proof of concept to this crazy movie that's doing a lot of weird stylistic things and tackling a subject matter in a way that, and with a tone that, people really aren't expecting or aren't used to it; with characters people aren't super familiar with, largely. So the feature came, and then the short, and then many, many more drafts of the feature!

As you mention, the film straddles a few genres, it’s a mockumentary, and there are elements of drama and comedy – how did you work on getting the tone right?

Adamma: It felt pretty natural. It's the type of media that I like – things that run the total gambit and that take risks, totally, and finding the humor in or around things that aren't ordinarily funny. I just made sure that whenever we were doing something comedic, to make sure that there were instances of darkness, and whenever we were approaching something darker, making sure that there was a bookend of comedy that doesn't necessarily relate to the subject, but just lightens things just a little bit, and make sure that it flows in and out.

As twins who work together, what’s your relationship like? Do you get on the same wavelength pretty easily? Do you think of things together?

Adanne: Yeah, it feels as similar as our regular relationship. Because we were born a partnership and we don't have any other siblings. So this is really the only sibling dynamic that we know. And it just feels more natural to do things together than not. So working together feels seamless. It almost doesn't feel like I'm working with another person.

Adamma: It just feels like an extension.

Getting Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall for one's first feature film is quite a feat. What did they bring to the production?

Adamma: Immense skill and and really ready to do the work and to be scrappy on this like super low-budget independent film. They bought this feeling of nurturing, that they were really, really invested in me, as a Black woman, writing and directing my first feature, doing it in the middle of a pandemic. They were just incredibly nurturing and really there, on a familial level almost, like, they felt like family and really, really wanted me to succeed and did everything they could to help me succeed.

Adanne: And they're also producers on the film. Yeah, were they, you know, they watched cuts and gave notes on various cuts. They were really integral in helping to shape what became what y'all saw on screen.

Your production company is called Ejime -- how much does your Nigerian heritage inform who you are while you’re working and living in Atlanta and LA?

Adanne: I think it influences how and what we create…

Adamma: And how we say things – our voice. How we write and present ourselves and present our work as filmmakers. Nigerians are special people.

Adanne: They’re saucy.

Adamma: They’re saucy! The way that they communicate is…

Adanne: It’s sharp. It’s biting.

Adamma: Yes! And that's probably a big part of why we're attracted to the type of film and filmmaking that we are, is because of that. Conversations with our father and our grandfather and our grandmother, his siblings, our whole extended family, if you're an outsider looking in, it can seem like a heated argument, but we're kind of just talking or having fun.

Adanne: Like a sport.

Adamma: But we like that biting nature, heavy critique – Nigerians will critique you, they’re not shy with that. and I thought they were very critical. They're not shy with that. Probably a lot of why we're attracted to that type of voice is because of our Nigerian background.

You have a lot coming up in terms of film and TV projects, setting yourselves up as a dynamic duo in Hollywood – what are you most excited about?

Adamma: We have our next feature film lined up and so we're gonna put that one together. We wrote that one together, and so we're definitely excited to put that out into the world. Then we have a couple of television shows in development that we are also excited to put out into the world. So we're working. We like being creative. This is fun!

-------------------OKAY AFRICA

CINEMA: Why Nigerians Living Abroad Love To Watch Nollywood Movies

A man passes by Nigerian movie billboards at a cinema in Lagos. Image: Cristina Aldehuela/AFP/Getty 

BY FRANCOISE UGOCHUKWU

The Nollywood industry – which came to life in the early 1990s – is often seen as a natural heir to the Nigerian TV series which had already produced roughly 14,000 feature films in the previous decade. These video-films of the early years have now become full feature films, and an integral part of popular life in Nigeria. Local audiences appreciate these homegrown productions relating to daily life in the country.

The films – about 1,000 are produced a year – offer a mix of urban scenes and village encounters. They appeal to both young people and to families, reaching out to local audiences in several Nigerian languages. The films are mainly produced in the big cities in the south of the country such as Lagos, Onitsha, Enugu, Aba, Ibadan or Calabar, though they are usually set in Lagos or Abuja and involve crews and actors from various ethnic backgrounds.

While Yoruba and Hausa filmmakers have opted for productions foregrounding their respective languages, statistics show that the number of films in Igbo, the language most commonly spoken in Eastern Nigeria, has been infinitesimal. Most of the films emanating from Igboland are in Nigerian English, a choice which has allowed them to reach out to wider audiences in other parts of the country and abroad. This has made them an instant hit and projected Nollywood on the international scene.

The number of films produced in other Nigerian languages such as Esan, Edo (Bini), Urhobo, Ijo, Hausa and Ogba has equally gained momentum.

Over less than three decades, Nollywood has gained an international reputation and inspired new film industries across Africa. The industry is widely considered as a showcase of the country. Interestingly, although a growing number of these films are now set in locations abroad, most remain firmly grounded in Nigerian cultures.

Over the years, the African public has come to discover and appreciate Nollywood. Nevertheless, outside Nigeria, its main public remains the Nigerian diaspora. Research carried out in London and Paris nine years ago sought out the opinions of Nigerians living abroad about the films.

The research showed that respondents spend a significant portion of their leisure time together with other Nigerians or other Africans, viewing Nigerian videofilms. They overwhelmingly preferred them to foreign films. These observations have since been enriched by follow-up interviews, confirming that these results remain relevant.

Scripting and scene-setting

By and large, protagonists in Nollywood films adhere to ancestral beliefs and carry on with most rural traditions.

The ancestral village that nurtured these beliefs never disappears entirely. It is nearly always the scene of at least a few family encounters. The acknowledgements that follow the film give precious few details about the places used, such as community centres, hospitals or churches. The village is usually signalled by narrow paths, mud houses, grassy compounds and farmlands, people in wrappers, bare-chested men or chiefs in traditional attire and oja music.

The set is far less important than the content; it is just there to provide a background to the protagonists’ actions and to reinforce the message that the individuals’ behaviour is partly determined by their family background.

Both the ‘old’ Nollywood and its ‘new’ version that has developed within the past 20 years have highlighted the premium value still given to the concept of extended family, the bedrock on which most scenarios are constructed. Yet storylines point to the flaws of the traditional family system and reflect on the malaise experienced by a country in the throes of rapid changes, leaving traditions behind and often incapable of replacing them with new values.

Subjects woven into the plots include polygamy turned sour, marital infidelity and couples drifting apart, obsession with male heirs and problems associated with childlessness, and strained relationships with in-laws and with rural folks.

Films also denounce other social ills. These include the traditional maltreatment of widows, political corruption and some of the troubles associated with urban life.

All these topics appeal to a broad African audience and have helped to lead to African co-productions.

The crucial role of Nollywood in Diaspora
Nearly half of those interviewed in my research said they preferred watching Nigerian films in English. A quarter preferred Yoruba while 16% preferred Igbo. Even so, over 58% of those interviewed considered that Nigerian languages played a role in the pleasure they derived from viewing films. They clearly perceived those languages as part of their cultural heritage and identity, a legacy to be cherished and protected.

Respondents equally considered their Nigerian language as a vital tool to communicate with older relatives in Nigeria and keep in touch with their roots. One of them says it beautifully:

It makes me feel more at home once I speak my language.
Unsurprisingly, language featured prominently in the list of what attracts viewers to Nollywood, second (50%) after the storyline (71.7%). Factors such as landscape and clothes, body language, houses and dances trailed behind.

Viewing Nigerian movies can therefore be seen and experienced as a trip down memory lane, a virtual journey back home and group therapy. A number of respondents also insisted on the educational value of the films, saying that “they have a moral tale to tell”.

Looking forward

Given the growing number of Nigerians migrating abroad in the current political climate, and given the proven benefits gained from regular watching as proven by my research and interviews, one cannot but encourage the current trend, which has seen a number of London and Paris cinema houses screening films belonging to the new Nollywood co-productions. Their recorded success will no doubt help Nigerians adjust to their diasporic situation while enriching the cultural scene of host countries.

SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION

INTERVIEW: Matias Marini Delves Into The Igbo In Feature Film

Image via Director's Note

“Shine Your Eyes’” Matias Marini on the Perfection of Squares, Portraying Sao Paulo, Brazilian Cinema

BY EMILIANO GRANADA

BERLIN (VARIETY) — Produced by Primo Filmes in co-production with MPM Film, Tabuleiro Filmes and SP Cine, “Shine Your Eyes,” warmly received at Berlin, tells the story of Amadi (OC Ukeje), a Lagos musician who flies to Sao Paulo to track down his older brother Ikenna (Chukwudi Iwuji), who’s gone missing, and bring him back home.

As he immerses himself in a city of simmering life, following the scarce trail that his brother’s left behind, Amadi encounters a multitude of characters and, despite language barriers, starts seeing the possibility of a new life.

The debut fiction feature of Matias Mariani who had made the documentary ‘I Touched All Your Stuff,” “Shine Your Eyes” is a highlight of Brazil’s recent drive into diversity via its cinema. A movie that, by both celebrating the culture of its protagonists, the Igbo people, an ethnic group of South-Eastern Nigeria and the exuberant life of Sao Paulo, delivers a tale of two brothers which is striking in tone and aesthetic with a colorful palette of human interactions and multiple unsaid mysteries.

“Shine Your Eyes” is about identity but also cultural differences and finding a common ground, human connection, which the films captures really well,” says Panorama head Michael Stütz. He adds: “Mariani also manages to dive into a subculture African diaspora, talking about roots, where you come from, what is home, what does it mean, where can you find yourself?”

Variety talked to Mariani as his film. the kind that demands a second viewing, finishes up its screenings in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

Your film feels very much like a matrioska that as it unfolds opens up issues and ideas about cultural identity, family dynamics, physic theories, among others. What was the genesis of the script?

A lot of it has to do with the experience of living abroad. I come from a very big and protective family. So when I moved to the U.S. it really felt a different existence, like the difference between you and the exterior are much clearer. You know who you are, where you stop and other people begin. I felt very lonely but at the same time very myself. On the other side was this attraction to Sao Paolo, where I was born. Which is a weird city, that people have even mythologized how ugly and savage it is. So when you say to someone that you miss Sao Paolo, it’s very hard to explain.

That’s when Maíra Bühler came in. We started doing research (about the Igbo culture) and giving Portuguese classes to a community in Sao Paolo. And it became less of an actual research and more of an interchange. You’re giving something and getting something in return. But I also remember coming back so doubtful, making a film about people that are so different from me. So a lot of the screenwriting process was making myself feel at peace with that idea and in that sense it was really important to have a lot of collaborators who made me feel comfortable in each area. I was more at ease working with actual contributors, scriptwriters who knew the story.

That same process of collaboration, one senses, feeds into the mise en scene. The film has a very clear visual style, portraying Sao Paolo via striking compositions. How did you try to find the right style for that?

I directed documentaries before but my actual 9 to 5 job is as a producer, so it might be one of the reasons why I approach collaboration in a different way than maybe people that come from a straight-up directing. I see a lot of directors that are protective, as if collaboration would somehow dilute their idea, would somehow make it less personal. For some reason, i have a lot off fears but this is not one, that really helped to let people really go into the script and into the images.

Leo Bittencourt, the DoP, is a close friend, the godfather of my child and was present throughout the whole process. So it’s hard to know where the idea began. I really didn’t need to write the city into the script too much because we would do that through mise en scene. He came with the idea of shooting in 4:3, I was very reluctant. I thought it felt gimmicky and I love Sao Paolo skylines which are very horizontal in nature. But he convinced to change the format of my phone and take pictures during a week and it felt amazing: The city opened up: How the 4:3 plays with the modernist architecture of Sao Paolo; how the lines appear much more in that format. But it came as well from talking with Chioma Thompson one of the script contributors. She understands a lot about Igbo mythology and religion. She gave me a book where I discovered that the mythological genesis of the universe in the Ibo religion is the idea of the square. So you had this concept that the world was a square originally and from there came the big bang, the breaking of that square. The square is perfection, the idea that things are in order. I felt this came into contrast with our idea of the celestial spheres, the sphere as a perfect figure. And talking to Fernando Timba, our art director, we decided to use the square as our shape and began figuring out how to visually break it.

Still today there’s this preconception of Latin American cinema as more bleak stories that handle social realism with a certain grit. In contrast, your film jumps from family drama, to horse racing equations, to magical realism, to moments of comedy, without losing some lightheartedness. How was the process of creating the film’s own tone.

As you say, that certain bleakness of Latin American cinema, that sense of urgency, we’re here to talk about social issues, so much pressing urgency to it. I totally get it and I understand why some Latin American cinema is like that and I respect it but at the same time I feel very disconnected, aesthetically and linguistically. That was something that I would constantly think about in this film. What’s the need for this film? How to explain to people why this film needs to be? As I was talking to Chukwudi, he said that to have characters who are not living from hand to mouth, who are not so much subject to the destiny of things because they are desperate, is in itself an act of subversion, specifically if you’re doing black characters. This is a heavy political, to give agency to characters like that. Of giving subjectivity, to create characters with rich inner roles. It’s heavily politica. That made me feel more at ease with the film – not being part of that tradition. Tone-wise I think it comes a lot from specific films, I wanted to emulate. “Into the White City,” by Alain Tanner; “C0de 46,” from Wintebottom, There was something about how they build their tone which is basically interpretation beyond simply aesthetics. And I knew I needed to find a tone because the actors were so diverse, OC who is a Hollywood actor and does much bigger roles in terms of gestures, then Chukwudi who is Shakespearian, thespian and then Indira who is more Brazilian theater which is very different from English theater. So there was a sense that if I did’t do anything, things would go all over the place.

Now, more than ever, that bleakness is very present in Latin America’s political and social climate. What is your perspective on what’s happening to Brazilian Cinema?

I’m glad you ask. I’ve been talking in interviews and I feel that I’m so pessimistic and I should give some sense of hope but that is not how I feel. We are in a very dark place. Art of course is not the worst, we have social economics, press freedoms, that have a stronger impact on people than cinema. And this is what people should focus on now. But talking about what I know, which is art, I think Bolsonaro is very intentionally closing down all the financial possibilities in filmmaking, theater, arts in general. There was a huge work community of thousands and thousands of people and now you’re in Rio or Sao Paulo and everyone is unemployed. There’s a sense of doom among people who have dedicated their whole life and suddenly from day to night things have stopped. And he did it because it was the main focus of opposition to him, something that he very much wanted and needed to silence in order to do all the other stuff he wanted to do. But is also about how he needs to tell stories that are more akin to what he is trying to do, that’s his main objective, to work his own narrative. People will continue to make cinema, that is without question, but the conditions in which it’s made will be set back, I think, for a long time. And it came exactly at the time where things were changing for Brazilian cinema, as a result its being taken care of by many politicians from both left and right. But I think this climate will reinforce those aesthetics that we’ve talked about, less subjectivity and more “savagery.”

INTERVIEW: There’s No Any Experience In My Life That Was A Mistake

Jide-kene Achufusi. Image via Fashion Lifestyle Entertainment.

BY AZUKA OGUJIUBA

Jide Kene Achufusi, popularly known as Swanky, is an actor, writer and model. Following the success of the much talked about sequel, “Living in Bondage: Breaking Free” where he was the lead character, no doubt, Achufusi is gradually becoming a household name in the industry. The talented actor shares his experience working with the producer of the film, Charles Okpaleke, as well as director, Ramsey Nouah, the things that endeared him to the script, future plans, his formative years and more, with Azuka Ogujiuba

You act, model and write scripts. Have you always wanted to go this path or you just picked it somewhere along the line?
Well, I’d like to think that we all pick things up along the line. Background, education, and environment, will definitely have shaped all of us into what we are today. So, acting is something that I realised I could do in high school. I could mimick or imitate someone’s behavioural pattern; that is where I started to get the incline that maybe I could be good at this thing.

You were the lead in one of Nollywood’s biggest production, “Living In Bondage the Sequel”. Share your experience with us?

First of all, it was my first time working in Lagos. It was also my first time working in their system or how they do things. You know, I had to be the one person who doesn’t complain, I had to be the one person who doesn’t give a hard time, I had to be the first person to arrive, first person to leave, you know they weren’t going to as much as possible cut you any slacks. Press number one, you don’t even want that happening because, ‘if any person com de talk say e be like say e don de enter him head,’ it’s a big deal.

So I had to be everything at everytime and they were really good as well. So, at the end of the day, it is what it is. The most challenging part was not just doing the film but also having to be the person who doesn’t ask questions. So, basically, when Ebuka of big brother said ‘I took my shot and ran with it,’ that was exactly the hardest part of it, taking that shot.

How was it like working with Ramsey Noah as the director of the movie and a co-actor?

He’s a great guy, he’s gentleman, he’s the guy who sees himself or describes himself as the slave driver. I see him as very compassionate and deeply artistic and so working with him was definitely a bar raiser for me or a bar hanger. I had to bring my A game if not my B+ game because his game is way way up there. I had to bring whatever it is that I had to be able to be in scenes with him and to be visible. It was a challenge and a task, something I was thinking about even before I got the role as well. It excited me because I’ve always looked forward to working with him. With Ramsey, as a co-actor, that was a challenge. As a director, he’s tentative, he’s impulsive, he’s spontaneous so you have to be ready to switch or to go whenever he says go. I guess it was more interesting than exhilarating.

How was it working with Charles Okpaleke, the CEO PlayNetwork, who bought the rights of the movie and is also the Executive producer? We also heard you have been signed to his management, how true is that?

Okay, well Charles is a great guy. He has an amazing persona, he’s the life, the plug, the event guy, he’s the guy that will chase every butterfly down and not get tired of chasing it down. Working with him, as a more experienced hand, not just in lifestyle or in life but also with investment and money and all of that, I’ve learnt a lot also on the business side of things. Being signed into play Network is indeed a great move for me. It’s indeed a great move because I honestly felt it gives me the leverage or the opportunity to be able to explore, more especially now that Nollywood needs to expand and collaborate more. That’s exactly what play network offers me. You know, the chance to see what the influencers are doing, the chance to see what the party boys are doing, the chance to see what they, CEO’s are doing, the chance to see what an entire team looks like, because that’s basically how we can move this to the next level.

How will you define your relationship with the older cast of the movie who acted in the first movie of “living in bondage the sequel”?
My relationship with them was very respectful, cordial, professional and full of support and love from their end to mine. I felt very supported. I felt very encouraged; I didn’t feel like, ‘hey this boy, what are you doing here.’ They took me out to dinners, where, the legends and everything were, and tried to make sure that I was comfortable to do the work I’ve come to do. I can’t thank them enough for their gentility, professionalism, humility, and of course, I don’t know what other big words to use and describe how they were but they were amazing.

What’s your take on the nature of movies Nollywood puts out in recent times? Do you think we are getting it right or we still have a long way to go?
We definitely do have a long way to go. Living in Bondage will start a new era as we believe and its quiet important that we observe the lessons that living in bondage is giving the entire industry. We have set goals and we can do better because, trust me, if we reshot living in bondage, we’d probably have a better throne with the experiences we’ve had shooting the first one. Moving forward, we should indeed bring the world to Africa, not try to phonerize or to take our content to look more like western stuff. You know we can collaborate anytime any day, but like I said, Nollywood is not just about Nigerian films, it’s about the entire continent of Africa. We need to come together; we need to work more with Zambians, Rwandan people, Ghanaians ,South African people, and so on and so forth, we definitely need to collaborate like that, moving forward.

If you weren’t into acting and modeling, what would you have been doing?

I probably would have been a medical doctor, if I took my books seriously, or if I was the type that would read from time to time, or I would have been in the oil business either of the two but then I’m quite happy to explore those industries as well, from here much later in life.

Tell us about your formative years
Everybody has a journey. I’m part of my journey. I was a student, then I became a part time model, then I became a part time actor, then I’ve done a lot of other things in between like organising fashion shows, host events, tried my hands at radio, tried writing a couple of things. I’m a writer. Basically, I just want to say that those years were very important to the final product or the still evolving product you’re looking at right now. All those times were very important. The fact that I live in the East and then this film, Living in Bondage, allowed me show people or give them the nostalgia of what reasonable Igbo boy of our time looks like. Well I’m grateful to be able to put all those my experiences, living in Amobia, Enugu, Ebonyi, schooling in Imo, literally everywhere in the East. It’s down to those formative years.

Give us an insight into your educational background and career?

I’m a geographer, I’m also a meteorologist and I also have a diploma in business. I’m also still in school. I really want to be able to know a little about photography, media, about the business side of things, you know, all those things, getting more things under my belt is very important to me as well. I did my nursery school in Ebonyi State, primary school, in Enugu, secondary school in Imo State, University in Enugu State and that’s it. Basically, my educational background has been in the East.

Can we say you were born with a silver spoon?

Well, as I am a very strong follower of Christ, I’d like to think that, yes I was born with a silver spoon because I’ve always been destined for greatness, but did I have so much money to throw around, growing up? Not so much, not so much.

How did your background shape your life?

A lot. I really said that earlier when I was asked about my educational background. It shaped my life a lot because it allowed me to bring a fresh perspective of things. You know, I’m real, I’m an Igbo boy, I’m down to earth, I don’t see the reason for hanging shoulder. I don’t see the reason for faking any kind of life. You know what you see is what you get. Be natural about everything and people will love you.

What was the best gift you remember receiving as a child?

Well ehmm my mum, honestly every other year that passes, ever since I was like maybe two, three, I usually have time for my breakdown and I cry and appreciate God for the gift of her. Every year, God keeps her in my life, I feel like it’s a new gift, there’s no gift I can be able to think about right now, because once that question hits me. Her name rings in my head. so I thank God for the gift of her.

What was the most difficult thing that has ever happened to you in all your years and how did you overcome it?
Well acne, acne was very difficult for me to overcome. I’m still over coming it, just relaxing more and more effort, washing your face more regularly than you would have, you know. It did a lot for me.

What do you consider the biggest mistake you have ever made?
I don’t know. I hardly ever have regrets; it’s always an experience for me. You learn you get better, tomorrow you wake up on your feet you know you keep going. I don’t. I’ve tried to think about it, so I don’t think there’s any experience in my head that is a mistake basically.

Are there things you still desire?

Of course keys to the good things of life. I want those things. I want to work on my relationship with God. I want people to not only hear, but to see through my life, that a life in Christ is amazing.

What are some of the lessons life has taught you?
Never stop working hard. You literally maybe stopping a week away from that call, never stop. That’s the biggest life lesson I have as of today.

What are your future plans?
The plan is to take over Africa, the plan is to take Africa to the world.

What’s your biggest fear in life?

The day God turns his back on me, hmm which is never gonna happen because if you go to my instagram, I think my very first post in IG is God first and God never lies. Thank you so much.

SOURCE: THIS DAY LIVE

STAGE REVIEW: Three Sisters At The National Theatre

The cast of Three Sisters. Image: Richard Davenport.

BY TIM WALKER

Quite possibly in response to the vacuity of the times in which we live, the National Theatre seems to have adopted a policy of staging very long, cerebral and earnest productions. Inua Ellams' adaptation of Chekov's Three Sisters - running to three and a quarter hours - is a prime example.

Ellams has relocated the story from provincial Russia at the turn of the century before last and plonked it down in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970 during Biafra's attempted secession. An interesting conceit, but I fear not one that can be altogether sustained. I've no doubt that Chekov, who wrote this play in 1900, would find it perplexing.

I don't say that Ellams hasn't got some interesting points to make about British neocolonialism, but it would have been a lot more straightforward, if not also honest, to have just started a new play from scratch than to try to weld all his ideas on to an existing classic. He may say it's a "new play" that he has written "after Chekhov", but it feels as if he just hasn't the courage of his own convictions to do his own play.

The setting is a village in Owerri, where three sisters, sitting on the porch of their home, think back longingly to their halcyon days in Lagos. The sisters are pretty much the same as the sisters in the original. There's Lolo, the teacher, played by Sarah Niles; Nne (Natalie Simpson), the married middle sister who is engaged in an affair with a military commander; and Udo, (Racheal Ofori), who is the youngest and slowly becoming reconciled to never fulfilling her potential.

A lot of the friction of the original was about social class, but it is now about tribal hostility. The failure of Nne's marriage is now down to the fact it was arranged in accordance with tribal tradition when she was 12. It may all be very clever, but it feels clever for the sake of being clever.

All of the conflict and violence that inevitably comes with the setting is hardly in keeping with the spirit of Chekhov. He was famous for writing plays in which not a lot happens but a sense of despair gradually descends upon his characters.

In Nadia Fall's production, the focus is less on the characters and the mood than all the stuff that is happening. 
The acting is uniformly excellent and Katrina Lindsay's sets and costumes are impressive, but ultimately it's the idea behind it all that just isn't strong enough.

I might add, too, in these bleak times, the National Theatre should be in the business at least just occasionally of instilling spirit and hope in the citizens of a largely disillusioned and demoralised capital. This was clearly never going to do that. I look ahead to the productions being staged in the New Year and I see no grounds for optimism. Opening towards the end of January is a show called Death of England.

SOURCE: THE NEW EUROPEAN

Harriet As Igbo

Cynthia Chinasaokwu Erivo as Harriet Tubman in a scene from "Harriet." Image: Glenn Wilson/Associated Press

BY BIKO AGOZINO

This is not a spoiler. “Harriet” is a film without spoilers because the audience already can tell how the movie was going to end. What I would like to comment on are the symbolic representations that the director, Kasi Lemmons, brought into the narrative that will not make sense to viewers who are not familiar with the background Igbo world views of both Harriet Tubman and the actress who played that role, Cynthia Chinasaokwu Erivo.

Some critics reportedly protested against the casting of the award-winning “British” actress and singer to play the role of the iconic African American hero but if only the protesters knew that it is a case of an Igbo woman being portrayed by another Igbo woman. Besides, African Americans have played the roles of Africans in Hollywood without protests from Africans, who simply admire good acting by our Black brothers and sisters.

There was a carving that the father of Minty, short for Araminta, gave her when she went to tell him that she was fleeing to freedom from slavery. She kept it with her always just as Frederick Douglass kept a piece of wood that an elderly enslaved man gave him after he was beaten by an overseer. According to Douglass, no one ever beat him again in his life for he kept that piece of wood with him, just as the old man told him.


The Igbo call such a piece of wood or carving, Ofo na Ogu, the symbol of innocence and blessings. The director, Kasi Lemmons, was probably reminding us throughout the movie that Harriet Tubman held Ofo and Ogu as a blessed innocent person and that that, in addition to her strong faith in God, was part of the reasons why she was bold in fighting for freedom from slavery for all, unlike Django who only went back to unchain his boo.

Harriet repeatedly claimed that she heard the voice of God but that was attributed, even by Black abolitionists, to “possible brain damage” from her head injury as a child when she was found in a barn with the white boy. The Igbo will agree with her claim that she heard the voice of God because the Igbo also believe that God is present in everyone as Chi, or God, a part of the Great God or Chiukwu, also known as Chineke, God the creator. Such a God or Chi would never subscribe to the pro-slavery gospel that the Black preacher was paid to preach to the congregation of the enslaved who were called upon to obey their masters and work hard for them as an honor to a white God. Harriet did not say amen to that prayer.

It is a shame that the leading actress, Cynthia Erivo, chose to go by her English first name when her Igbo name would have been more appropriate to the role. Chinasaokwu, the name that her Igbo parents gave her in England when she was born, means God answers accusations. Just as Minty dropped her slave name and chose a free name, perhaps to evade slave catchers who continued to search for runaway enslaved people especially after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, Cynthia should be challenged by her fans to drop the slave name and adopt her Igbo name, Chinasa, as her first name in honor of Harriet if not in honor of her own family. Her real last name, Erivo, literally translates as the unfed or the starving, a strange name that echoes memories of the mass starvation of the Igbo in Biafra, during which 3.1 million died. The actress owes it to herself to recover her Igbo name as her first name.

Incidentally, the name Harriet and her original slave name, Araminta, may have onomatopeic meanings in Igbo as Ha aya eti – they will never beat us – and Ala mu nta – my little land, or Aninta, a common Igbo name. Hayeti is, by coincidence, similar to the name that the Haitian Igbo revolutionaries gave to their new republic – Ayeti – and that is the way they still spell it in creole today, like the way that Harriet said that people pronounced Rit, her mother’s name that she took. It means in Igbo, they will never beat us. Even the name of the director of this movie, Kasi, also transliterates in Igbo as to console, suggesting the consolation for those who have suffered great injustice without being offered reparative justice.

Moreover, the name Moses that was attributed to Harriet by almost everyone, may also have an Igbo-sounding meaning – Moshishi, or the spirit said to say. The enslavers could not believe that an African woman was capable of leading such daring raids to free the enslaved and lead them to freedom in their hundreds. They claimed that she was a white abolitionist in “blackface,” which must have been a popular pastime of influential white men then and even now.

The Harriet model of womanist activism can be found in Ogu Umunwanyi, during which Igbo women declared war against colonialism in 1929, only 16 years after Harriet passed away; the Abeokuta women’s rebellion against taxation in 1945; the Kikuyu women’s uprising against forced labor in the 1950s; the South African women’s defiance against the pass laws of apartheid in the 1950s; and the Liberian women’s praying of the devil back to hell to end the bloody civil war in the 1990s.

Unlike Western feminist activists who seek gender-separatism, the Africana womanists are exemplary in the sense that their demands always included the interests of suffering men and women in articulation or intersectionality instead of seeking divisive gender essentialism. This is part of the reasons why Professor Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi theorized that womanism was more appropriate than feminism as a description of the interests of African women within cultures that also inevitably include men as allies who can also be opponents in some ways but cannot be pigeon-holed essentially as all the enemies of “womandom.” The film, “Harriet,” showed that not even all white men were enemies during slavery given the important role played by white abolitionists, though some white women were among the worst enslavers and some Black men worked for the slave catchers to earn some money.

Harriet was fond of singing the freedom song, “Go down, Moses, go down to Egypt land and tell old Pharaoh to let my people go,” as a rallying signal for the enslaved to join the underground railroad to freedom. The biblical Moses was called an Egyptian and so, Harriet was not a Black Moses – the biblical Moses was obviously not white. The fact that Harriet was suspected to be a man goes to challenge the Western invention of women as gendered in submissive relations under patriarchy whereas gender is not a central feature of the conception of people in African cultures where generation, not gender, is more deferential and hegemonic, according to Oyeronke Oyemumi in “The Invention of Women.”

Harriet carried a gun with her for protection and used it to threaten some of her own family members who were too scared to go with her to freedom. But when she had the opportunity to shoot and kill her enslavers, she chose not to kill. This may seem strange to many fans of Hollywood who have come to expect the hero to be a blood-thirsty maniac in Tarantino movies. However, to the Igbo who suffered genocide, pogroms and mass killings in Nigeria without resorting to retaliatory killings, it is normal to leave the gravest wrongs in the hands of our Chi and instead invest our energies into rebuilding our beloved communities in accordance with the African philosophy of nonviolence that Gandhi admitted that he was taught in Africa and Martin Luther King Jr. followed to lead the Civil Rights Movement.

A puzzle that the film tried to solve was why many poor whites who did not enslave Africans continued to fight in support of what the film called the “lost cause” of slavery even after the Africans had asserted their right to freedom as fellow human beings. W.E.B. Du Bois explained this with the theory of the psychological wages of whiteness.

However, the film differed slightly from the conventional interpretation of this theory by explaining that, according to Du Bois, it was not just psychological wages because there were huge structural privileges to even poor whites that they would like to defend – not to mention the hefty rewards placed on the heads of “Moses” and the runaway enslaved people to motivate poor whites to join the posse to try and recapture them.

Also, the young white men were motivated by their lust for the bodies of young Black girls who were gang raped even “before their first blood” perhaps because they were brought up to think of Black girls as “pigs to be sold or eaten” but never to be loved by white men who fathered children that looked exactly like them and still enslaved their own flesh and blood or sold them for money.

The film represented Harriet leading a unit of African American soldiers in battle during the Civil War at the historic Combahee River point of the Black Womanist Rebellion statement. This was the only time that a woman commanded men in battle during the Civil War. It came to pass in fulfillment of the vision that Harriet shared with the young white man who was trying to recapture her as his property even though she prayed for him to survive typhoid as a child.

She had disarmed him and made him climb down from his white horse, knelt him down and aimed his own rifle at him, and told him to listen to the coming sounds of the Civil War even before the war started. She prophesied that he was going to die with thousands of other young white men fighting for a lost cause.

Then she rode off on his white horse, which did not discriminate between a white male rider and a black female rider. That war soon took an estimated 750,000 lives but it could have been avoided if white people simply accepted the fact that Black people were equally human and not property. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Dr. Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech. He can be reached at agozino@vt.edu.

SOURCE: SAN FRANCISCO BAY VIEW

From Living In Bondage To Lionheart: Nollywood's Thorny Path To Its Digital Future

Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, produced by Charles Okpaleke and directed by Ramsey Noah in his directorial debut is a Sequel to the 1992 release.

BY EDWIN OKOLO

In January 2019, American media giant, Netflix, made a splash by premiering Genevieve Nnaji’s directorial debut, Lionheart, exclusively on its streaming service. In a deal brokered by Funa Maduka, months before, at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ms. Nnaji became the first Nigerian filmmaker to debut their project to an international audience in this way, paving the way for the flurry of Nigerian films that would follow in the coming months and closing the circle of digital distribution for online content that began exactly 10 years before with a little show about sexual awareness. To understand how Nigerian media made the leap from video clubs and viewing centers to a winner-takes-all streaming war, we need to go down a tunnel of tax havens, gambling banks and the rise of social currency.

The Internet knocks but once

The first media wave began in 1992 with Living In Bondage (which 27 years later has been revived with a second installment). There are many accounts of how the film was made, but what was not in contention was how successful it became. Funded almost entirely by businessmen turned financiers, the first iteration of Nollywood was almost entirely profit-driven and rode the direct-to-video wave for most of the 90s churning out the bulk of content that today has a second life as Tumblr memes and the subversive work of the sisters behind Instagram account Nolly.Babes. The mass of films from that era eventually led to the rise of the first generation of Nollywood A-listers, whose ascension led to controversies like the G8 ban of 2004, and set in motion the eventual decline of the O.G Nollywood marketer and the rise of what we refer to today as ‘New Nollywood.’ That decline was marked by a decided shift in the viewing habits of Nigerians.

There are many reasons for this decline. The first generation of Nigerians raised on some form of cable television came into adolescence hungry for global content. Piracy soared in response to their demand, competing with and eventually decimating Nollywood pulp cinema.

A presidential order by Olusegun Obasanjo in 2001 led to the introduction of Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) Telecommunication networks into Nigeria. New licenses and impressive waivers on operational taxes drew major South African players MTN to invest in the Nigerian markets and usher in privatised, profit-focused mobile telephony. By 2005, MTN, Glo and Econet had introduced mobile internet services to the media market. A direct consequence of this was that it became significantly easier for young people to not only curate the content that they consumed but to also seek out niche content that was either unavailable because it was currently out of syndication or unavailable because terrestrial television stations could not afford to license them. Hunched over desktop screens and cheap Chinese disc players, Nigerians gorged themselves on content.

The second major catalyst was the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS). A unique feature of the Blackberry Service Suite, created specifically as a business tool for Blackberry, a major mobile player in the 2000’s; the BIS was a closed Internet Service Provider network that clients could access for a certain fee and it offered a heavily discounted alternative to the exorbitant data charges of the mobile networks offering similar services at the time. While created primarily for businesses, the BIS network’s significantly cheaper data services encouraged early experimentation with streaming and downloading of digital content for entertainment. Websites like NotJustOk and Jaguda were the first to capitalize on this new craving for digital media created by Nigerians for Nigerian consumption. Early P2P sharing platforms like Limewire were all the rage.

 

The Academy Awards disqualified Lionheart in its foreign language film category.

The third and most influential catalyst was social media. Before the advent of Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, it was incredibly difficult to build local communities around media interests. Fandoms were rare in Nigeria, and it was difficult and expensive to organize or participate in events that celebrated mutual interest in any kind of activity. Yahoo Groups and Yahoo 360 had offered rudimentary versions of fan-based platforms but they had been targeted primarily to Western audiences. Facebook groups, however, were easier to navigate and provided a neat and impersonal solution that simply allowed fans of a TV show or musician to ‘opt-in’ to groups and pages that had relevant information about these interests and allowed fans to find each other virtually. By 2010, it wasn’t uncommon to find fan-managed celebrity Facebook groups and pages with 100,000 fans. Twitter would accelerate the process through live-tweeting, real-time reviews and analysis of shows as they aired. Combined with the ‘opt-in’ feature of Twitter’s follow model, fans were incentivised by social currency to offer their opinions on digital content and media companies were more likely to create content that would trigger that kind of engagement.

Social media, in combination with cheaper mobile internet, meant there was a steady stream of conversation happening at any point in time in already segmented audience groups. All that was left was to create media content that specifically catered to the needs of these groups and a pioneer to get things started.

Media moves online
That pioneer turned out to be MTV. The product was MTV Shuga, a YA-oriented television show that drew from the true-grit model of Western tween television shows revolving specifically on how a group of teens and young adults dealt with the fallout of either living with or interacting with people with HIV. The hysteria around HIV was at its peak in 2009 and MTV Shuga was one of the first shows that did an excellent job of destigmatising the condition. The show also launched the careers of Lupita N’yongo and Nick Mutuma. Released originally only to Kenyan audiences, the enduring buzz around the show led to an online release on YouTube and its second season in 2012. The concurrent release of the show online opened MTV Shuga to an otherwise ignored demographic and most likely inspired the showrunners to move the show West to Lagos for a follow-up season. It seems too much of a coincidence that Ndani TV, Guaranty Trust Bank’s innovative media offshoot, was launched in the same year.

MTV Shuga Naija was a runaway success. Like it had with Lupita, the show launched the careers of Dorcas Shola Fapson and Timini Egbuson, proving unequivocally that there was an audience for content accessible only by streaming. There was an audience, primed for conversations, looking for content to engage with.

Until that point, Tajudeen Adepetun of Consolidated Media Associates and AlphaVision Productions had been the only showrunner to find a sweet spot between accessible storytelling and passable execution. He had conquered television with shows like Everyday People & Treasures, and engineered Nigeria’s enduring obsession with Mexican telenovelas but seemed unwilling to expand into digital. Even his archive of beloved television soaps remained in syndication on terrestrial television. It would take the intervention of Nigeria’s banks to change things.

Guaranty Trust Bank was the first to launch a digital media imprint. Ndani TV, its imprint, was launched early 2012 evolving from a quarterly newsletter of the same name. In its primary role as a content marketing platform for the bank, the platform was helmed by Lola Odedina and Jade Osiberu with Mohammed Attah as the channel’s first showrunner. Without any prior experience in creating content specifically for a digital platform, Ndani experimented with interview style shows, before striking gold with scripted web shows. Gidi Up, their first web show, was a huge gamble.

The studio invested heavily in the show’s production values and hired relatively unknown actors as the show’s six leads. Even the choice to have a multi-lead cast and flesh out multiple storylines was a gamble itself. But the storytelling and Osiberu’s understanding of youth culture helped transform their ambitious ideas into a cult-making season of entertainment. Overt with their branding and ruthless with their advertising, Ndani became synonymous with new media; following the success of Gidi Up with tailored shows like the Youtube juggernaut Skinny Girl In Transit and Rumour Has It.

United Bank for Africa, (now defunct) Diamond Bank, and Access Bank launched RED TV and Accelerate TV to carve their own niches on YouTube and tap into the goodwill that Ndani extended to GTB. Emboldened by the success of Ndani’s programming, both platforms began to experiment with finding their own formats. High profile partnerships with EbonyLife’s Temi Abudu and director Kemi Adetiba led to Accelerate TV’s scripted reality TV show On The Real and their wildly successful interview series King Women. RED TV experimented with meta-comedy, hiring comedian Koye Kekere-Ekun to expand his social media shtick into a detective series called Inspector K.

Ndani has remained the front runner in the race to dominate YouTube despite tragedies like the loss of all its footage for a highly anticipated third season of Gidi Up, and scandals like its reactive decision to scrub the Ndani channel of its 2019 show Oga Pastor mid-season to avoid getting entangled in a co-incidental religious scandal involving a high-profile pastor. But it has also lost significant ground to shows like Accelerate TV’s The Shade Corner (which took three years and two seasons to find its level) and RED TV’s surprise hit The Men’s Corner.

The only real contender for the Big Three on YouTube at this time is LowlaDee productions, an independent production company run by Dolapo ‘Lowladee’ Adeleke. Adeleke’s production company made its name with This Is It, a crowd-pleasing rom-com manufactured to leverage the combined West African and East African digital biomes.

A free for all

The big three (Accelerate, Ndani and RED) got a few years’ head start before the technology evolved enough to shed much of the prohibitive costs that had kept independent players from entering the market. Now that those barriers are gone, digital media content is well and truly anyone’s game.

Long-time veteran Jason Njoku, in partnership with his wife and business partner Mary Remmy Njoku, were early adopters of streaming apps whose primarily sell is exclusive, locally created content. Her shows Husbands of Lagos and Festac Town helped streaming platform IrokoTV pivot away from its archive of vintage Nollywood content and build a contemporary fanbase.

The Njokus have been so successful at creating digital content and courting digital audiences that Mary Remmy was able to broker a major takeover deal with French media giant Canal+. The sale speaks to the current state of Nigeria’s digital media and the growth that has occurred in the last decade. Mrs. Njoku’s sale is phenomenal because Rok Studios is less than 5 years old and until its sale was run independent of external funding.

There is, of course, Linda Ikeji’s attempt to expand her media empire beyond blogging with her Linda Ikeji TV streaming service that had early viral shows like King Tonto and Oyinbo Wives of Nollywood. SceneOneTV (owned by Funke ‘Jenifa’ Akindele) is a niche but self-perpetuating vehicle for Akindele’s personal projects that include the now-labored Jenifa’s Diary and a spinoff show, Aiyetoro Town. Even media mogul Mo Abudu got in on the action with EbonyLife ON (which was sold to audiences by exclusively streaming its glossy legal drama ‘Castle and Castle’ on the platform). Streaming is such a competitive market that even DSTV, feeling the burn of digital media, created ShowMax, its own answer to the streaming wars and the primary distribution vehicle, for its big-ticket show, the Big Brother Naija franchise.

An inevitable consequence of the local audiences finally paying top money for their entertainment is that they now have demands. After nearly 8 years of majorly phenomenal press, Ndani suddenly found itself in a maelstrom of bad press. Agitations have long simmered about the firm’s alleged disinterest in the fans’ concerns, as encapsulated by their refusal to release an official statement on Gidi Up, and consequently the decision to pull its preacher thriller, Oga Pastor, off-air mid-season and replace it with Phases, a show shot and released so hastily its working title was changed after the first episode had aired. Fans have openly promised to boycott and are voting with their clicks and money.

How will the next decade of Nigerian film and television media evolve?

It is hard to predict. Nigerian innovators like Joel Benson are already experimenting with 3D imaging and augmented reality in the same market, ‘Asaba Nollywood’ still coughs up enough pulp cinema to keep the poorest Nigerians entertained. However, it is more difficult to predict if the big three will stay fascinated with their content marketing platforms enough to finance them for another decade without a clear path to independence and profitability. Cheaper tools mean Nigerians are directing and attempting ambitious projects at much younger ages than we’ve ever seen; figuring out the logistics of distribution and revenue channels as they go along.

In a nutshell, while the industry has never been this potent, it remains to be seen if this potency will lead to an expansion or an implosion.

Edwin Okolo is a journalist, fashion critic, and artisanal crocheter. He has written for the New York Times, Native Magazine, African Arguments, and Sable Lit. He is the editor-in-chief at YNaija.com

PUNCH INTERVIEW: I Still Don’t Know What My Stage Name, Ovuleria, Means

Lizzy Evoeme as Ovularia in New Masquerade

BY ALEXANDER OKERE

Mrs Lizzy Evoeme, popularly known as Ovuleria, in the now rested NTA series, New Masquerade, played the role of assertive wife of Zebrudaya Okoligwe in the TV comedy. The 77-year-old veteran speaks with ALEXANDER OKERE about her childhood, career and family experience

You currently live in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Has it always been your base?

No, it hasn’t. I came to Port Harcourt three years ago. When I left Enugu, I went to live with my daughter in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. My daughter, in 2016, passed on, so there was no way I could continue living in Uyo. That was why I relocated to Port Harcourt.

Were you born in Enugu State?

I was born in Calabar, Cross River State, but I am a native of Akabo in the Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State. I married an Ngwa man and I have spent almost all my life with Ngwa people. My father was a seafarer; he was a captain and a trader. My parents had eight of us and I happen to be the first of them all. My father was one tough disciplinarian, who didn’t take any nonsense from his children. The way he used to whip me and my siblings is still fresh in my memory. I still dream about it, sometimes. But it paid off for me.

Was acting your childhood ambition?

I wouldn’t say it was or wasn’t. My childhood ambition, actually, was getting married as early as I could and running away from the home because my dad was very tough. Being the first child, everything came down to me; if somebody didn’t wash the plates or their clothes, they would ‘call my name’ (hold me responsible). I found it hard to take all the time.

In those days, girls married early; some of my peers were getting pregnant without caution but my father used to threaten that he would kill and bury me under his chair, if I disgraced the family. That put fear in me and I looked forward to getting married and moving out so I could escape his whip.

How did you join the New Masquerade team?
I belonged to a drama group in Aba; it was called Ndiche Playhouse and we used to do plays and invite people to watch and make donations because money wasn’t that available then as it was not long after the Nigerian Civil War. There was a show we did that was popular. So, when the New Masquerade came to Aba, they were also doing shows on television.

On one occasion, somebody invited me to attend the rehearsals for a play, Sons and Daughters. I went there and auditioned for a minor role and got the role. When one of the major actors, Gertrude, was leaving, they wanted somebody to take up her role in the play, Zebrudaya, and asked if I could do it. I told them I could and that was how I got the role. James Iroha, aka Gringori Akabogu, produced ‘Sons and Daughters’ and ‘Zebrudaya’.

How was the name ‘Ovuleria’ coined?
I don’t know; it was the producer who coined that name and told me to answer it and I did. He never told me the meaning.

Did your major acting career begin with the New Masquerade?

Yes. I can confidently say that because even when I was with the Ndiche Playhouse, it didn’t last for too long. I started my acting career with the New Masquerade in 1985 or 1986.

Do you think it was a commercial success for you?

If you are asking whether I benefited from it, yes, I did. We were paid, especially when it went to the network platform. It helped me. Being a widow with children, what I got from it went a long way in helping in managing the affairs of my family.

Do you know what led to the discontinuation of the programme?
How would I know? The authorities of the NTA know what led to it (its discontinuation)?

When it ended, what did you do next?

I didn’t take up any other profession. I continued acting; that was the time Nigerian home video started. I did few shows before I travelled to be with my family elsewhere. But I can’t remember the shows now.

Did you have any challenge moving on after the New Masquerade?

I missed the time I spent with the cast but I didn’t dwell on that or sit down and lament and feel miserable because as God would have it, just at that time, my daughter invited me to come abroad. By the time I came back, the boredom and sadness had worn out.

The stage name, Ovuleria, seems to be more popular than your real name. Did it affect you personally?
It affected me but I won’t say it did negatively. Most people who know me don’t know me by any other name except Ovuleria. But to tell you the truth, when people close to me, like family members or intimate friends, called me that name, it sometimes annoyed me. I prefer being identified with my real name. I felt that a fictional name was taking over my real self.

Are you still in contact with the major cast of the New Masquerade?

I miss all of them who have passed on because we were not just colleagues but a family. We had quarrels but we made up. We ate together and travelled together.

Can you tell us the countries you visited as part of the cast?
We visited the United States of America and Sierra Leone, Cameroon; but within Nigeria, we visited almost every part of the country.

What are the other things the TV sitcom did for you?

It gave me fulfilment and achievement because I enjoyed every moment of what I did. When you go out and people you don’t know and wouldn’t have met in your entire life tell you they appreciate what you did on TV, it gives you fulfilment.

At 77, do you have any regrets?

I don’t have any regrets. God has been in control of my whole life, in spite of the tragedies I have faced. I believe God knows why they happened.

Will you like to share some of such sad moments?

I lost my husband at a very early age. I lost him during the Biafran War (Nigerian Civil War). Out of the five children God blessed me with, I now have only two left. Losing my children and husband has been my saddest moment.

How did you meet your husband?

I met my husband in my church choir. He was also a member of the same choir. I married very early.

Was it because of your father?

I told you my father was a bully and I always wished I could marry and get out of the house. So, when I met my husband (and he was a very handsome man), he was a promising civil servant at that time and there weren’t many of them. He was a court clerk and at that time, civil servant were regarded as ‘big men’ (wealthy men). I found him very attractive; when he proposed to me, I accepted and the marriage was fruitful and successful though short-lived. He died as a result of the war.

What would you describe as your happiest moment?
My happiest moment is when I am with my grandchildren.

What would you have become if you were not an actor?

I wanted to be a teacher or a nurse. But when I married my husband, he said I was not going to work, that he would rather work and look after me and the children. So, if I could turn back the hands of time, I would have loved to be a teacher or a nurse.

Comedy in Nigeria has taken different forms since the era of the New Masquerade and similar sitcoms that were popular in the 80s and 90s. How would you rate the types of comedy aired in the country today?

Personally and from an old woman’s point of view, it has greatly improved. But the quality of shows produced now is not what it used to be during my time. There are things, like the language and acting, which go on air these days but weren’t allowed during my time. I don’t agree with some of them, personally. There are some roles given to people which I wouldn’t play for any amount of money.

Morality has gone to blazes. I think female actors should consider their personal and social gains before accepting roles. Everything is not about money. My father used to quote a portion of the Bible which says that a good name is better than gold. However, it depends on the individual because according to Zebrudaya, “one man is meat, another is poison.”

If you are given a role to play, think of what you will be portraying to the public and the impression people will have about you as a person because not everybody will know that what you play is not who or what you are. If you want to make a name for yourself, make a good name.

SOURCE: PUNCH

Nnaji's 'Lionheart' Disqualified For The Oscars, Sparks Social Media Uproar

BY YOHANA DESTER

Back in April, the film Academy announced that it was renaming the best-foreign-language-film category to best international feature film. The reason? The term “foreign” felt “outdated within the global filmmaking community,” the Academy said in a press release. At the time it didn’t stir as much of a debate as the quickly scrapped best-popular-film category had the year before. But now the Academy is taking the heat this week because Lionheart, Nigeria’s first movie submitted for best international feature film, has been disqualified, according to the Wrap.

Lionheart, a drama starring and directed by Genevieve Nnaji, was reportedly disqualified because even though it is filmed partly in Igbo, a Nigerian language, it is mostly in English. That means it violates the Academy’s rule that a submission to the category has to have a “predominantly non-English dialogue track.” Voters were made aware that Lionheart would no longer be eligible on Monday, just days before the Academy was set to screen it for voters in Hollywood.

The announcement has sparked a debate online, with some users noting that Nigeria’s official language is English. “Are you barring this country from ever competing for an Oscar in its official language?” Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay wrote in a tweet directed at the Academy’s official account.

Nnaji herself also addressed the controversy, responding to DuVernay’s tweet and saying Lionheart “represents the way we speak as Nigerians. This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country; thereby making us #OneNigeria.”

“It’s no different to how French connects communities in former French colonies. We did not choose who colonized us,” Nnaji added. “As ever, this film and many like it, is proudly Nigerian.”

The disqualification marks a divide between the category’s name change and its perhaps impractical, uncomfortable application in the real world. As film critic Guy Lodge noted on Twitter, the broader title does not specifically disqualify films in English, even if the rules do. “If you permit an English-language film from Nigeria to compete, then you have to permit English-language films from the UK, Canada, Australia, etc, to compete,” he wrote. “If you do that, the category's purpose in giving a platform to under-represented cinema is effectively compromised.” After all, he noted, best picture should technically be the best international film.

But perhaps the disqualification should come as no surprise to Oscar watchers. As Bong Joon-ho recently declared in a Vulture interview, the Oscars “are not an international film festival. They’re very local,” a sly burn of the century that highlight the awards ceremony’s myopic view of the global film community. Meanwhile, Bong’s latest film, the Korean-language Parasite is predicted as one of the front runners of the best international film category.

Lionheart’s disqualification now brings the number of international film contenders from 92 to 93 entries. Qualified films in the category will be announced on October 7.

Uzo Aduba Talks Empowering Nigeria To Solve Its Water And Sanitation Crisis On 'Activate'

Uzo Aduba. Image: Rtan Gall/Global Citizen via Hollywood Reporter

BY TRILBY BERESFORD

The 'Orange Is the New Black' star participated in Thursday's episode of the National Geographic documentary series, setting a goal to find five governors in the African nation to fund access to safe, clean water.

"Water is a right, not a privilege. It shouldn't be that just because you are a person of means, with access to water, then you don't have to die from waterborne illnesses or watch your child suffer from things as treatable as diarrhea."

This message comes from actress Uzo Aduba, who recently joined the cast of FX's Fargo and boasts three Emmy Awards for her role as Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" on Netflix's Orange Is the New Black. But her most recent project was a trip to her native Nigeria to participate in an episode of National Geographic's six-part documentary series Activate: The Global Citizen Movement, which seeks to drive action toward ending poverty, inequality, education and sustainability.

Created as a multi-platform storytelling partnership with Procter & Gamble and co-produced by Global Citizen and RadicalMedia, Activate also features such Hollywood activists as Rachel Brosnahan, Gayle King, Hugh Jackman, Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Pharrell Williams and Darren Criss. All the artists work on Global Citizen campaigns that examine critical global issues and encourage world leaders to take the necessary steps for improvement. In Aduba's episode, access to clean water and sanitation was the focus.

"Uzo used her platforms to call for Nigerian federal and state governments to take action, both on social media and in person, says Talia Fried, senior manager of global policy and government affairs at Global Citizen. "Her tireless advocacy has been a great asset in securing commitments and continuing to create meaningful change."

As Aduba explains to The Hollywood Reporter, "Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, yet 80 percent of the nation lives without drinkable water." Armed with that figure, her primary goal on the trip was to get five governors to commit 15 billion Naira [the Nigerian currency] from their budget to help solve the clean water and sanitation problem. "This isn't a small faction of the Nigerian citizenship, which would still not be OK. We're talking about, overwhelmingly — people are living this way," emphasizes Aduba.

Aduba grew up in Boston and traveled to Nigeria for the first time at 8 years old, where she was exposed to the reality of the devastating situation — her parents having to plan their water consumption down to every precise detail and calculate how much bottled water they would need each day, witnessing locals collecting rain water in an empty oil drum to use for cleaning, bathing and drinking if bottled water ran out. "It had never occurred to me, living in the United States — where the unique privilege exists and the assumption that when you flip on your faucet, water comes out — that that was not true for everyone," she says.

Alongside Global Citizen, Aduba used this latest trip to forge connections with members of her native Igbo tribe and visit villages without access to clean drinking water. The actress says she was "heartbroken to see that the stream where water was bring pulled from was the same stream where the cows drink from and defecate beside, the same stream where mosquitoes rally, where run-off from outdoor Porta Potty [toilets] find their way home. It's the same stream where litter and pollution are all around it. The image of seeing that there are waterborne illnesses in that stream, and that children play in it and young women pull water from it for cooking, bathing and serving — it was a lot."

"Uzo’s experience in Nigeria shows firsthand what polluted water does to vulnerable communities, and most importantly, how we can mobilize to create change, says Courteney Monroe, president of National Geographic Global Television Networks. P&G's Allison Tummon Kamphuis, who leads the Children's Safe Drinking Water and Gender Equality program, and is featured in the episode, adds that Aduba inspired everyone with her impassioned words on what citizens and governments around the world can do to help.

Concludes Aduba, "My main goal was to remind Nigeria of her power, and what she has accomplished in such a short time — from gaining her independence to the number of professional successes — and what we do when we commit ourselves to excellence."

Activate: The Global Citizen Movement airs weekly on the National Geographic channel and on Global Citizen. The episode featuring Aduba, titled "Clean Water" premieres Thursday, Oct. 10.