Sandbox

From The Sandbox: Nollywood: touched by a figurine

July 8th, 2010 by Katrin Winiarski

Every day, our community manager Katrin Winiarski, reads through her feed of all Sandboxers’ blog posts. Every Thursday, she chooses the most inspiring, funny or brilliant one and reposts it on this blog. This post has been written by Sandboxer Onyeka Nwelue. This is only a shortened version, the original version can be found here.

I travelled down to Nigeria from Delhi to attend the 2010 AMAA Awards. I got tickets and went for the glamorous event. I was not disappointed. Even as the event started late, I was impressed by the organisation of the event. More support should be given to the organisers and I also believe that such Jury should be sustained. They were, in my opinion, very fair.

The Figurine, directed by Kunle Afolayan went home with the biggest number of awards, including Best Motion Picture.[...]

A lot of people didn’t know about this movie until the AMAA. Most people have not seen the movie. They just know it stars actor of Israeli-Lebanese descent, Ramsey Nouah and people got to see Omoni Oboli, that beautiful actress, as very promising.

Nollywood movies rank as the most poorly made movies in the world, still the directors easily attack their critics, believing they should be praised. How do you praise a child that shat on his cloth?

I’ve seen a Nollywood script. It’s laughable. I’ve been on set of a Nollywood movie. Sometimes, the actors ‘direct’ the director. The actors and actresses want to wear whatever pleases them. The costumier has to sit and watch them pick what they like and not what the part they are playing requires of them. Who cares if a girl raised in the countryside wears a lipstick and rides in a Jeep, without stepping out of her village? Hey, the viewers are senseless. They know nothing. They won’t cringe at all. [...]

Bad movies are made, not because there’s limited fund. It is because the writer has produced a very worded and verbose script (with so much proverbs). The director reads and can’t just pass the first few pages, but because he has discussed the idea with the writer, he goes on with it.

But with movies like Kunle Afolayan’s The Figurine and Stephanie Okereke’s Through the Glass, movies are beginning to have release dates and are being premiered at cinemas. The ‘soundtracks’ are now being called ‘theme songs’ and are being made innovative and classical.

Nollywood might be witnessing a rebirth. I see a Nollywood movie getting a nomination at the Oscars in a very short time… [...]

Onyeka Nwelue grew up in Nigeria and was trained as a scriptwriter in a film-school in Delhi. His first novel “The Abyssinian Boy” became a national bestseller and won the 2009 TM Aluko Prize for First Book and second prize in the Ibrahim Tahir Prize for Fiction.