A Nigerian movie maker, Charles Novia, has defined his target market as 1 billion Africans who can relate to stories about the ‘Black man,’ adding that, the desire to break into Hollywood will only lead to a struggle for recognition.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, Novia spoke about the interrelationship between the top three film industries in the world: Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood.
He advised local film makers to concentrate on the ready market available in Africa rather than aim to attain recognition by Hollywood which will amount to a struggle to be known.
Novia, who made a comparison between plots in Nigerian movies versus plots in Hollywood movies, said that Hollywood filmmakers have been able to make the concept of ‘magic,’ which is tagged ‘voodoo’ in African movies, appealing.
Film festivals such as the African Film Festival currently holding at Tinapa in Calabar is a platform on which film makers and actors from the different sides of the divide interact.
Novia commended the organisers of the event which has attracted both the international and Nigerian community to the centre.
He also spoke about Tinapa and the reason why it is yet to achieve its potentials.
He explained that the original plan for building Tinapa was to encourage the film industry and advertising agencies to shoot films and commercials locally but there was a mistake along the line.
He pointed out that as at the time Tinapa was built, the structures were ahead of times and movie professionals were not consulted.
“The grandiose idea of the structure wasn’t really made with the local industry in mind,” he said adding that the error was the reason why the structure ‘remained fallow’ until recently, when Ebony Live TV started using it.
If the structures were to be built now, there would be more input from filmmakers.
Novia also said that Calabar is a good location for film makers because of the ambience and serenity but wondered why most film makers are not using it as a film base.
He credited this to a ‘bandwagon mentality’ which causes stakeholders to emulate each other.
He commented on the visit by international movie makers and actors to events in Nigeria and said there is a disconnect somewhere as to the intent of such visit. He tagged it as a good PR mechanism.