Video - Why nothing will stop Yemi Alade

Nigerian pop superstar Yemi Alade is a force to be reckoned with. In her own words, a "Woman of Steel". Alade's accomplishments in music are many. Her song "Johnny" was one of the biggest hits on the African continent in 2014. In 2015 and 2016 she won Best Female performer at the MTV Africa Music Awards and was nominated for Best International Act at the BET Awards. In less than a decade, she has released five studio albums and has collaborated with artists such as Rick Ross, Duncan Mighty, Angelique Kidjo and Funke Akindele. But perhaps her biggest collaboration to date has been with Beyonce, contributing to the Black is King Album with The Gift and Don’t Jealous Me. Alade boasts more than 450 million YouTube streams, has close to 15 million Instagram followers, and is about to begin a second season as a judge on Nigeria’s The Voice. As if all of that wasn't enough, Alade has now become a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, working to highlight COVID-19 vaccine inequality. The daughter of a police officer, she was also part of Nigeria's huge End Sars campaign against police brutality and is passionate about women's rights. In this episode of The Stream, Yemi Alade us in-studio for a conversation about her music, women’s empowerment, her activism on COVID and for an exclusive live performance.

Netflix first original series from Nigeria drops highly anticipated trailer

It is one of the most anticipated Nollywood films of all time and the trailer for King Of Boys: The Return Of The King was released Monday amid frenzy from fans of the crime and political thriller, who call themselves the KOB Army.

The seven-part project is Netflix's first Original Series from Nigeria and a sequel to the highly acclaimed 2018 King of Boys movie directed by leading director Kemi Adetiba.

Fans can now take a peek at what to expect, as formidable businesswoman Eniola Salami, played by Nollywood veteran Sola Sobowale, returns to Nigeria after a five-year exile eager to mete out blood-curdling punishments to her adversaries.

Following the success of the first installation, which made over N450 million ($1M) at the box office, Adetiba announced a sequel was in the works.

After a two-year wait, she revealed that the sequel initially intended to be a movie will be a Netflix Original limited series.

The KOB Army

The KOB Army has shown immense support for the franchise since the first movie, with fans making plans for viewing parties and special outfits when it premieres on August 27 on Netflix.

As the release day for the sequel draws nearer, the anticipation runs high as many wait with bated breath to see The Return Of The King. But fans are not the only ones eager; Adetiba describes the weight of the expectation as "awaiting a report card for the last year and a half of my life."

"My anxiety these days ranges from numb to severe...so I too am on tenterhooks, she says. "But I'm mostly absolutely thrilled by the love and support of the KOB ARMY. It's been so overwhelming. The massive anticipation simply shows us how well-loved KOB 1 is."

The King of Boys has been a stand-out movie for modern Nollywood. It was the sophomore film by Adetiba, whose directorial debut, The Wedding Party, was the unopposed Nollywood movie of the year 2016, being the highest-grossing film until January 2021 and spotlighting Adetiba, who already made her mark in the music and television industry, as a filmmaker of note.

The new installment will see old characters from the original, including actor Toni Tones, who reprises her role as a young Eniola Salami and musician Reminisce as Makanaki.

It also introduces new characters who have a bone to pick with Salami. Among them are seasoned actors Nse Ikpe-Etim and Nollywood heartthrob Richard Mofe Damijo.

King of Boys is a departure from the cheery, bright romcom of The Wedding Party into the dark crime-filled world of Eniola Salami, whose quest for power leaves a trail of dead bodies in her wake.
It was a wager which paid off in an industry known of late for primarily producing comedies to meet the audience's demand. Of the top 10 highest-grossing Nollywood movies, King of Boys is the sole thriller on the list.

Trusting the audience

Adetiba says the successful outing taught her not to cage her audience.

"I remember once in film school, an instructor said, 'If you treat your audience as if they were intelligent, they'll love you for it,'" she says.

"Yes, I was told that the audience wasn't ready for a film like KOB." Still, Adetiba and her brother, Remi Adetiba, who co-produces the franchise, persisted in bringing the project to light.

"Running on blind faith, we were all, "Go Big Or Go Home." It was our very own 'Do It Afraid' moment, but we jumped in the deep end, and our amazing audience, aka KOB ARMY, thanked us with their massive support. Just as my instructor said."

Not only was the genre a deviation from the norm in modern Nollywood, but her lead figure was complex in a way that is rarely done in the industry, where characters are usually portrayed as either good or evil.

Adetiba says it was vital for her to highlight this complexity because it mirrors real life.
"I love my characters to be relatable...There are many facets to you and I. Understanding this then creating a character that is one-dimensional is an injustice."

"So when I'm creating a character like Eniola Salami ... I'm interested in who s(he) is to all those different people. In Eniola's life, we have her family, those she encounters in everyday life, her legit business customers, then her interactions... in the 'underworld.'"

Adetiba says the production has been a real labor of love and promises a great time.
"We threw everything into this production... including the kitchen sink. We gave everything we had, so it's a product of REAL love, blood, sweat and tears. Most important of all, it's a great story."

By Anita Patrick

CNN

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Eyimofe: Twin Directors’ Stunning Feature Debut Takes Nigerian Cinema To New Heights

Financed entirely in Nigeria and made with a predominantly Nigerian cast and crew, Arie and Chuko Esiri are capturing international attention with their feature in new movie “Eyimofe”.

“Eyimofe” (“This Is My Desire”), the debut feature from co-directors (and twin brothers) Arie and Chuko Esiri, is a heartrending and hopeful portrait of everyday human endurance in Nigeria, West Africa. The film traces the journeys of two distantly connected strangers at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

Shot on richly textured 16mm, the film is a vivid snapshot of life in contemporary, colorful, chaotic Lagos, the largest city in the country, whose social fabric is captured in all its vibrancy and complexity. It’s also a tale that was inspired by the filmmakers’ own journey.

“In a romantic way, we wanted to insert the film in the catalog and annals of the great city films that had been shot on celluloid,” said Chuko in a recent interview with News men. “We’ve seen Rome on film, we’ve seen Paris and London, but everything that we’d seen of Nigeria on film is archival footage, it’s ethnographic footage, it’s documentary. It’s not cinema, and cinema is a completely different beast.”

Documentary filmmakers might beg to differ, but the brothers are steadfast in their thinking. Still, the immortalization of the city on celluloid is a noble feat, especially when shooting in a country without any stable cinema infrastructure, a notoriously unreliable electrical grid and nightmarish traffic.

“Shooting on the streets of Lagos is notoriously difficult, because it’s a dense city and has what are called ‘area boys,’ or street guys,” Chuko said. “The idea of shutting down a street for a film production — I mean, if the president of the country can’t do that when he visits, then we weren’t going to be able to do it for our movie.”

Born 30 minutes apart in Warri, Nigeria, they grew up in Lagos, but at the age of eight, their parents shipped them off to boarding school in England to complete their formal education. At the time, there were no cinemas in Nigeria, so movies weren’t a part of their childhood. “At the time, the country was experiencing successive military regimes, and each regime had bright ideas about what was good for the culture, and these ideas were almost never good,” Chuko said. “So we didn’t grow up going to movies.”

Twenty years later, they both enrolled in film schools: Arie graduated from Columbia University and Chuko from New York University. During their time in New York City, they collaborated on a pair of short films: “Goose,” presented at the LA Film Festival in 2017, and “Besida,” which premiered at the Berlinale in 2018.

They returned to Nigeria as adults and found a Lagos that has somehow felt foreign. “Eyimofe” was born out of that experience — the idea of leaving and returning much later to whatever “home” is.

“It came from my returning to Nigeria for my stint in the National Youth Service,” he said. “From the age of eight to 22, I had only spent time in Nigeria on holiday, so now I was spending substantial time in a place to which I belonged but where I was also something of an alien — until then I hadn’t really faced all that it meant to be in Nigeria. I wanted to return to where it felt more familiar and where I would feel more comfortable in a national film industry. Even though Nigeria has a robust industry, Nollywood is a massive machine but I didn’t want to make the kind of films people make in it.”

While the Esiri brothers spent much of their lives overseas, “Eyimofe” was financed entirely in Nigeria and made with a predominantly Nigerian cast and crew. The film is now drawing a new level of international attention to Nigerian cinema and screening at several festivals, including Berlin and New Directors/New Films. However, as Nigerian movies get more notice outside the country, it’s also raising the issue of exactly what a “Nigerian film” is supposed to be.

Akeju, a US-based director at Aflik TV while making comment on the new movie, added: ” The movie details much of African migrants experiences in the Diaspora. The production is very different and professional. Kudos to the directors and all the team behind it”

The Janus Films will release “Eyimofe” across various theaters on Friday, July 23, 2021 and will be hoping it inspires as much audiences as possible.

The Guardian

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3 Nigerians selected for Netflix Development Lab to engender more local African content

3 Nigerians selected for Netflix Development Lab to engender more local African content

 Three Nigerians have been selected among the twelve (12) African candidates chosen to participate in the 3-month Netflix Episodic Lab (EPL) and Development Executive Traineeship (DET) launched by the Realness Institute.

2 Nigerians were selected to participate in the Episodic Lab where they will develop their story concepts alongside expert story consultants and creative producers. They are Ayoade Adeyanju with Agent 419 and Kehinde Joseph with Osupa.

Other participants include Andile Ngcizela with Drummies (South Africa); Dominique Jossie with Fafi (South Africa); Kudakwashe Maradzika with Bad Influencer (Zimbabwe/South Africa) and Mary Waireri with Sheitain (Kenya/United Kingdom).

Netflix’s Episodic Lab and Development Executive Traineeship are part of efforts by the global streaming giant and the Realness Institute to produce more original local content from creative writers in Africa.

For the DET, Ololade Okedare is the only Nigerian selected to participate in the program where they will accompany the incubation of the six potential Netflix African Original Series.

Anneke Villet, Antionette Engel and Thandeka Zwane (South Africa), Damaris Irungu Ochieng’ (Kenya) and Lara Sousa (Mozambique) make up the other five DET participants.

The Episodic Lab will take place remotely till 5 September 2021, where selected participants will receive about $2,000 monthly stipend so that they can focus entirely on their development. At the end of the lab, each writer will have an opportunity to pitch their incubated concept to Netflix to have their series further developed for production.

Meet the Nigerian writers taking part in the Netflix Episodic Lab.

Ayoade Adeyanju

Ayoade has aggregated over 10 years of career experience creating content spanning various local and international TV shows, including MNet’s Tinsel and EbonyLife’s Ojo’s in ‘d House. He created African Magic’s Hustle and was the story editor for African Magic’s Battleground. He developed content for the critically acclaimed, award-winning show, MTV Shuga.

Kehinde Joseph

Kehinde Joseph has worked for 9 years as a radio presenter on Eko FM in Lagos. He’s the sole Nollywood screenwriter with 3 movies that’s grossed over 100 million at the box office.

By Gbemileke Babatunde

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HBO explores Nigerian human rights in “The Legend of the Underground”

HBO is set to debut The Legend of the Underground, a 90-minute feature doc that examines systemic discrimination in Nigeria.

In 2013, Nigeria enacted the anti-LGBTQ law, the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill (SSMPA), and in the years since, it has been used to harass, imprison, extort and commit violence against anyone seen as not conforming to Nigerian societal and cultural norms.

In August of 2018, 57 men who attended a party in Lagos, Nigeria were rounded up by police, arrested and forced in front of news cameras. One of the men, James, defiantly spoke out against the government while still in handcuffs.

Meanwhile in New York, Micheal Ighodaro is part of the Nigerian diaspora and an LGBTQ rights and HIV prevention advocate. As he works in advocacy for the people and communities he left behind, James and his circle of friends struggle with the option to seek security abroad, or to stay and fight a discriminatory system.

The Legend of the Underground is directed by Nneka Onuorah and Giselle Bailey, and executive produced by Mike Jackson, John Legend, Ty Stiklorius and Austyn Biggers of Get Lifted Film Co. For HBO the senior producer is Sara Rodriguez; with executive producers Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller.

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Meet Hugo Obi: Nigerian Entrepreneur Changing The Video Gaming Landscape In Africa

Over the last decade, we have seen significant growth in the entertainment and media industry across Africa with both Afrobeats and Nollywood growing not just on the continent but internationally. An industry that has been slowly growing in the background as mobile technology is adopted on the continent is gaming. One entrepreneur who has been building a gaming company for almost a decade is Hugo Obi, founder of Maliyo Games.

Early Beginnings

Hugo was born in the U.K. but grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and stayed there until his early 20s when he came back to the U.K. for university. He long had an interest in technology and in particular the business side of the industry. In light of this, he opted to study International Business, Economics & Finance at Manchester University. Upon completion of his studies like many of his peers in the late 00’s he decided to get a job in finance working for GE Capital. He quickly realized however that the corporate life wasn’t for him and decided to set up his own company helping large organizations find diverse talent for graduate recruiting. Some of the companies they worked with included Google when they first moved to the U.K. as well as many leading investment banks, law, and accounting firms.

Maintaining an interest in Nigeria and being entrepreneurial by nature Hugo took note of a shift in the narrative around Africa being a “rising star” in the early 2010s. Many people he knew from the diaspora had started moving back and during a conversation with a friend discussing the rise of the music and film industry, they realized how big the gaming industry could be. Many tech companies, particularly in the e-commerce space were expanding to Africa so he had confidence that building something would be feasible. This was the birth of Maliyo Games, a company that would explore creating games for African consumers that would increase diversity in gaming the same way Afrobeats has for music and Nollywood for film.

Maliyo Games

When Hugo announced Maliyo Games there was a significant amount of interest given the mood towards tech on the continent at the time. However, setting things up proved to be difficult as whilst Nigeria had an abundance of creative talent able to do things such as 2-D animation, write stories and create graphics there was a dearth of technical talent. In the end, they decided to outsource the technical side of building games internationally whilst doing the graphics and design in-house. They launched their first few games which were desktop at the time and received a great reception. The games proved to be the backbone and validation for the mobile games they would later launch on Android as the platform grew across Africa.

The inspiration for the first games on mobile such as Mosquito Smasher, a game where the user has to squash mosquitoes, a very common nuisance in Africa went on to become a success. Applying a level of cultural relevance to good game ideals and practices continued to work for other games however, Hugo realized that to scale they needed to ensure that there was enough local talent in the ecosystem. To his fortune, this was also the time YouTube was becoming more widely used on the continent and its vast educational back catalog on how to program was valuable as many people who were not encouraged to pursue things like computer programming in school started learning in their spare time. Maliyo Games noticed this and started to work in the ecosystem setting up competitions as well as training boot camps for up-and-coming talent. This allowed them to help grow the ecosystem and secure a pipeline of talent for their own company. Today the entire Maliyo Games team is based in Nigeria, something which did not seem so possible at the start of the journey.

Having established itself as one of the leaders in the mobile gaming industry in Africa and going into its second leg of growth Hugo says the company's focus is “not just on launching games that will be a hit but that will evolve and increase the standard in the industry”. Rather than quickly increasing their portfolio of 40 games they will focus on building and improving high-quality games. One of the games launching under this new ethos is called Danfo Racer, a racing game based around a “Danfo” which is a bus and popular form of transport. The game takes you around various parts of Africa racing which not only provides entertainment but allows the players to learn about different African country’s cultures.

A big part of Hugo’s mission when starting Maliyo Games was to help another industry, like music and entertainment, gain prominence in Africa developing products people could be proud of. This has evolved into not only wanting his company to succeed in doing this but building an ecosystem where he hopes many other gamers and gaming companies will realize the vast potential on the continent.

By Tommy Williams

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Nigeria's Burna Boy says Grammy win marks 'big moment' for African music

Modern African music is altering perceptions of the continent as part of a global cultural shift that marks a “big moment”, Nigerian music artist Burna Boy told Reuters after hailing his first Grammy award.

Burna Boy was awarded a Grammy for the Best Global Music Album this month for ‘Twice As Tall’ which was released last year.

He is part of a generation of Nigerian music artists, which include Wizkid and Davido, that has enjoyed global success in recent years as proponents of the Afrobeats sound. The African genre is now almost as likely to be heard in London or Los Angeles as it is in Lagos.

“It’s a big moment and a big time for African music and Africans in general,” said Burna Boy, during an interview at his home in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos.

The artist, whose real name is Damini Ogulu, said his award was part of a “domino effect” that gives Africans more control over the way they are perceived through technology, as streaming services take the continent’s arts to a global audience.

“I didn’t even want to be African when I was little,” he said. “I wanted to be anything but who I was, because who we are wasn’t really the cool thing to be,” said the artist, who grew up in southern Nigeria and moved to London as a child before returning to the west African country.

He said his win showed that African music was attracting worldwide respect.

Those sentiments were shared by many at Edge Music Academy, in the Jakande district of Lagos, where students compose music in a studio decked out with microphones, laptops and a keyboard.

“The future is bright,” said student Obi Prince. “The way Afrobeats is represented in the world right now can only be a start for Nigerian artists. We just have to do our thing and bring out ourselves more globally,” he said.

The academy’s chief executive officer, Michael Tijani, said Burna Boy’s win was a “huge deal” for Nigerian music.

“People coming into the industry now have a more concrete belief that you can actually get as far as anybody else in the world can go,” he said.

Reclining in a chair in his home studio, Burna Boy reflected on his success.

“You can’t mention the top five musicians in the world without throwing me or an African in there,” he said, smiling. “Now we’re eye to eye with the people we used to look up to.”

By Alexis Akwagyiram, Angela Ukomadu

Reuters

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Actors from Bollywood in India and Nollywood in Nigeria have been collaborating on a film to celebrate cross-cultural love. The movie, Namaste Wahala will debut on Netflix on Valentine's Day. CGTN's Joy Kiruki Juma with the details.

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'The system is rigged': Seun Kuti on reviving Fela's political party

The musician and youngest son of the Afrobeat legend has been galvanised to act after police brutality in Nigeria

“For 60 years nothing has really been solved in this country,” Seun Kuti says. “Healthcare, education, electricity, transportation, welfare – nothing has been accomplished.”

Galvanised by the brutality meted out by Nigerian police against protesters in October last year, the 37-year-old Grammy-nominated musician and youngest son of the Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti resurrected his father’s socialist political party, the Movement of the People. Against a backdrop of widespread and mounting frustration over how Nigeria is run, he hopes the MOP can be a vehicle for change in 2021.

The “weird” past year was, he says, compounded by peculiarly Nigerian challenges. In October Kuti marched alongside thousands of others in the #EndSars protests against police brutality, nursing the wounds of shot demonstrators. The protests, some of the largest in Nigeria for decades, erupted after footage emerged of police brutality by the notorious Sars unit. But the underlying causes were broader, Kuti says. “The people made it known that EndSars was a slogan. How I interpreted it was they wanted an end to oppression, not just a manifestation of it that is Sars.”

More recently, he lost his band leader, Dave Obayendo. “We couldn’t even tell whether it was Covid or not, he wasn’t tested,” Kuti says. “The hospital turned him back. Before they took him to the next hospital, he died in the car.” The rejection of patients by hospitals is rife, he says, sometimes for issues such as a lack of adequate equipment.

The MOP was founded in 1979 by Fela before his sole, failed presidential bid, one episode of an extraordinary life of music and resistance during which he faced near-endless violence and suppression by Nigerian authorities.

According to Kuti, the prospects for anti-establishment parties, though still remote, are better now. “Today it will be easier for such a message to reach the core of Nigerian people than it was in the 70s. The problems are so glaring,” he says. “Elites have imposed this sinister, anti-poor capitalist system, going on for years and years, but are people really in favour of it? How can you be a capitalist with no capital? You’ll begin to see that the system is rigged.”

Kuti hopes the new version of the MOP, which brings together an array of small leftwing activist groups, will more effectively articulate these issues, “giving the masses a voice and building class consciousness”. But he scoffs at the prospect of a presidential run and says the group’s aims are long-term. “No, that’s not me. I’m an artist. But we will have candidates across the country for sure,” he says.

“The military hierarchy has consistently made sure that they are the ones in power, we have to put an end to it. We have to build a mass movement from the grassroots up, giving ordinary Nigerians a platform.”

A bleak sense of deja vu feels hard to ignore in Nigeria. In the 1980s Muhammadu Buhari, who is now the president, was a military dictator and a prime target of Fela’s ceaselessly political songwriting. Then as now, economic suffering, a weakening currency and a flailing anti-corruption campaign were causing widespread dismay.

The killing of scores of protesters by army and police officials in October, including at the Lekki tollgate area of Lagos, was one of several episodes where protesters and critics were attacked, arrested or met with state aggression.

“During one protest a guy came to my house who had a gunshot wound in his side like this,” Kuti says, gesturing to his torso. “People talk about the Lekki massacre but they shot people everywhere, people were shot to death all over Lagos.”

MOP’s first meeting was due to be held in December at Fela’s old club, Afrika Shrine, a bohemian enclave where he often performed. But scores of armed police surrounded the building and banned them from organising, so the meeting was held elsewhere.

“It just shows that they [the authorities] are spooked,” Kuti says. “They are trying to send a message, but they can’t stop what we’re doing.”

Rolling joints with his own self-branded rolling paper, Kuti describes how the absence of touring over the last year has been hard. “I miss my band, we had plans last year that were cancelled, but I’m hopeful we’ll start things up again this year,” he says. Playing his saxophone, he says, brings him joy.

Although music, family, and new business ventures to offset the lack of performing are time-consuming, political change is front of mind.

“Maybe it can be hard to be hopeful but I’m hopeful, Kuti says. “We want to set up different ways of reaching out to the masses because frankly they are ignored. We can’t bring change without the people, so giving them a voice is the most important thing.”

By Emmanuel Akinwotu

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Can the Milkmaid win Nigeria’s first Oscar?

When the Nigerian Official Selection Committee sat down to select Nigeria’s nominee for the 2021 Academy Awards last December, the jury voted overwhelmingly for Desmond Ovbiagele’s film The Milkmaid over the sex-trafficking drama Oloture and film festival toast Eyimofe.

Unlike Genevieve Nnaji’s Lionheart which the Academy disqualified from the international feature film category last year for having English as the main language of the script, The Milkmaid fulfils the requirement for a predominantly non-English dialogue track. It conveys authenticity with Hausa, Fulfulde and Arabic, three languages hermetically spoken throughout the film.

The film follows the story of two sisters, Aisha (Anthonieta Kalunta) and Zainab (Maryam Booth), who get separated when insurgents attack their village. Aisha is determined to rescue Zainab from her captors and traces her whereabouts to an enemy camp, where she is enslaved and treated inhumanely.

A sophomore feature from Ovbiagele after his 2014 crime thriller debut Return to Caesar, The Milkmaid is a compellingly superior entry into Nollywood’s Boko Haram-themed cinema.

The genre is relatively new, inspired by the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria, which began its deadly uprising in 2009 and has claimed the lives of more than 37,000 people and displaced 2.5 million. Most of these films are not made to be box office hits as they usually employ largely unknown actors, so they sail under the radar.

But with Joel Kachi Benson’s Daughters of Chibok winning a Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and Netflix picking up Adekunle Adejuyigbe’s The Delivery Boy a year later, the genre is slowly occupying an expanding space in the public imagination and has set off some conversations about violence in society.

Tackling such sensitive issues as religious extremism and violence, The Milkmaid has predictably faced censorship at home. The Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), the government agency whose mandate is to regulate the creation, distribution and exhibition of films and video products by rating them, denied the film classification because it felt it portrayed Islam as an enabler of religious extremism.

To obtain a classification for pubic screening in Nigeria, 24-minutes-worth of footage was cut from the director’s original version. “We had to remove everything – costume, dialogue, language that was an authentic depiction of a particular religion, even though there is nothing in the film that states that the religion was directly responsible for violence,” Ovbiagele said in a December 2020 interview.

The Milkmaid’s censorship was to be expected, considering the NFVCB’s history of stifling artistic freedom and paranoia that films can threaten national unity. The film does not suggest Islam inspires extremism and it also does not glorify terrorists and whatever their motivations are. Rather it exhumes the traumatic experiences of women and girls in a world blighted by insurgency. Although the film is yet to do a wide release, the response from the members of the Muslim community who have seen it at private viewings has been positive.

Because of censorship at home, The Milkmaid turned to Cameroon and Zimbabwe for its theatrical release in November, then went on a limited run with its toned-down cut in select Nigerian cinemas in afterwards. Garnering local buzz, the motion picture swept last year’s Africa Movie Academy Awards with eight nominations and four awards, including Best Film.

For the Oscars, Ovbiagele sent the film’s original version, which contains all the elements of a potential winner: a compelling story, captivating actors’ performance and masterful cinematography.

Through Ovbiagele’s deft handling of the camera, audiences can see how beauty tightly intertwines with violence, creating a stunning artistic patchwork. This visual language is defined by the crisp cinematography of Yinka Edwards whose technical detailing does not just dwell on scenery but also within interpersonal spaces.

At the core of that is a feminine reckoning with extremism and its fallouts – the abduction of women and girls, violence and enslavement.

There is something particularly auspicious about The Milkmaid’s Oscar campaign footprint. But will it appeal to the Academy?

Aside from its obvious artistic merit, the Oscar fate of The Milkmaid will be determined by how the Academy voters – representing the American audience – see anti-terrorism messaging almost 20 years after the start of the US “war on terror”.

Like Nollywood, Hollywood too has experienced a boom in the production of films inspired by the themes of extremism and insurgency. A few have even made it to the Oscars and won.

The genre has successfully propelled the US government narrative of its forces fighting foreign terrorism and restoring stability to faraway conflict-torn regions and has done little to illuminate the disastrous consequences of US anti-terror-driven imperialism.

Although it does not tackle the international aspect of the Boko Haram insurgency, The Milkmaid fits well into this mainstream US narrative about terrorism. Its story would feed into the American viewers’ self-righteous disdain for overseas terrorist groups and will probably be well received. Whether this is what the Academy will be looking for in this year’s international film feature category remains to be seen.

By Bernard Dayo

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Disney partners Africa’s Kugali Media for animated series Iwájú set in Lagos, Nigeria

On Friday 11, December, 2020 the animation arm of Hollywood company, Walt Disney, unveiled a list of content it plans to release and projects it will work on in the coming year.

Disney hinted at a collaboration with a pan-African entertainment entity, Kugali Media, founded by creatives from Nigeria and Uganda.

This partnership will birth an adaptation of its comic book titled, Iwájú, a Yoruba term which roughly translates to ‘The Future’. According to the announcement, the animation will be set in Lagos, Nigeria.

Apparently, the comic book was published in 2019 — although we can’t confirm if it’s commercially available in print — and the artists have since been eyeing a Disney adaptation as gathered from a BBC interview.

In the words of one of the authors of Iwájú, “most of what you find out there about Africa is being told by non-Africans, and it was crucial to us that Africans tell their own stories.”

The chapterisation of the sci-fi book touches on and seeks to correct the global perception of Africa as a country instead of a continent. It, thus, brought onboard artists from different parts of the continent to portray their different cultures. Hence, reflecting different African mythologies.

The project is reportedly funded through crowdfunding £25,000 from across the world.

Having eventually gotten Disney’s attention, the production of the book adaptation — currently at the visual development stage — will begin in 2021 and will debut on its streaming service, Disney+ in 2022.

Meanwhile, this is not the first African story pitch to have gotten Disney’s attention. In July 2018, the company announced interest in Sadé, the fairytale story of an African princess that, through the help of newly-developed magical powers, saved her kingdom. However, there has been no further news on the project.

Clearly, Africans delving into animation do not only bring past histories to life — like Nigerian-made Lady Buckit and the Motley Mopsters did — they also go-ahead to bring myths believed to only exist on the continent to global knowledge while displaying their rich and diverse cultures.

If the fear of bringing a Hollywood touch into the movie can be allayed, it would be because of the succinct details reported to be in the comic book. While it has a futuristic theme, inventions portrayed in the book still reflect the adoption of African indigenous tools.

But one significant feature of incredible movie adaptations is the eventual disparity between the movie and the book. Except for bad adaptations, the movie usually comes out to be a much more refined version of the book after it passes through scriptwriting, production and editing.

Although, if Iwájú makes it to Disney+ before public access to the book, the cinematic touch might affect how the book is eventually seen.

Given precedence, the book already seems to be a great source material which Disney has the budget to bring to life.

Worthy of note is the fact that Nigeria’s animation industry is still in its infancy and has been facing a number of challenges. A notable example is the animation project, titled Sadé, which, for undisclosed reasons, did not make it to the big screens.

While this increasing global interest may boost the morale of African scriptwriters, we could also see more renown movie studios working with indigenous filmmakers on globally accepted cinematic content.

By Oluwanifemi Kolawole

Techpoint 

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Nigerian Comics Serve Afrofuturism Direct From The Source

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Nigerian Comics Serve Afrofuturism Direct From The Source

The massive success of Marvel’s Black Panther in 2018 opened a lot of eyes to the creative and commercial potential of Afrofuturism – science fiction rooted in Black cultural experience and Black storytelling styles. That influence didn’t end at the water’s edge: it echoed back its ancestral homelands, inspiring new efforts to bring homegrown African visions to a global audience primed for exciting new content.

Several interesting new digital comics efforts spring from Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, entertainment hub (“Nollywood” is the world’s third largest film industry) and a hotbed of scrappy entrepreneurship. Because Nigeria can be a difficult market to penetrate for outsiders, much of the energy is coming from local startups who leapfrog legacy production and distribution methods, creating digital content for mobile phones favored by the young population.

Ayudeji Makinde is founder/CEO of ComicsDI, a startup digital comics company producing several episodic webcomics in various genres including a thriller, Lagelu: The Kingdom on Four Hills, Duro, featuring a mythical hero, and a pair of science fiction stories, The Futurology and Njeri. He says the industry has grown tremendously in the past 20 years, with publishers springing up as the global footprint of comics culture has expanded into Africa through events like the annual Lagos Comic Convention.

“I go to Lagos Comic Con every year,” says Makinde. “There are so many comic brands, it’s excellent.”

He believes the increasing global popularity of Afrofuturism is giving a boost to indigenous creators steeped in the cultures of the continent. “African Afrofuturism has the same attitudes and principles [as diaspora styles],” he says. “It’s a combination of fantasy and culture, looking to the future of African people. Coming from here, our understanding of the culture differs. We can craft it from our angle, in our unique voice.”

“We believe African comics and fiction stands as the future of global storytelling in mainstream media,” says Somto Ajuluchukwu, Founder and CEO of Vortex247, another Nigerian digital comics publisher and marketplace specializing in mythic fantasy (Land of the Gods), horror/mystery (Folk Tales), and superhero comics (Captain South Africa) from around the continent.

“We hope to be a propelling force and platform for this new age of entertainment content and create not just opportunity for individual creators with exceptional comics but a market place which would build an industry for young creators to monetize their stories and grow a fan base using our comics as a tool to export African culture and globalize our Afro lifestyle,” says Ajuluchukwu.

Like their counterparts in the US and around the world, Nigerian comic publishers have one eye on advancing their own medium with gorgeously-drawn, well-told stories and memorable characters, and one eye on the wider media potential of comics. The proximity to one of Africa’s biggest film production hubs helps, although many Nollywood feature films lean heavily on drama, action and practical effects without the big budgets that propel Hollywood blockbusters.

“We are currently in conversation with a few Nollywood and South African producers towards some adaptations, however most are still in the development stage for TV,” said Ajuluchukwu. “We also recently made a successful pitch to a mobile game studio based in Italy which would be adapting one of our VX Originals for an IOS mobile game.”

With animation becoming a growth industry around the continent, some properties are getting picked up for development as series or features. A highlight of the 2019 Lagos Comic Convention was an animated trailer for Malika: Warrior Queen - a popular graphic novel by Roye Okupe - from Lagos-based Anthill Studios.

For now, the biggest issues have to do with finance and infrastructure. Nigeria remains a rugged place to do business, although increased access to global online finance and distribution platforms is starting to help local creators and companies reach a broader audience.

“We have the skill, we have the creativity,” says Makinde. “Things are dragging because of financial issues, but creativity? The creativity is there.”

By Rob Salkowitz

Forbes

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Aged just 10, Emmanuella Samuel has used her own earnings from YouTube, to build a house for her parents. She has been the star of the popular Nigerian Mark Angel Comedy YouTube channel since the age of five.

Thankful for her ongoing support, Emmanuella says her mother actually deserves an estate.

BBC Pidgin met up with Emmanuella who showed them around the house.

Nigeria's First Feature-Length Animated Film for Release Dec 11

To help children and families deal with the challenges of 2020, Hot Ticket Productions, a Nigerian mass media company involved in the production of movies and other forms of entertainment, has announced the date for the premiere of Nigeria's first feature-length animation film, Ladybuckit and the Motley Mopsters (LBMM).

The movie will start showing in cinemas across Nigeria and internationally on Friday, December 11, 2020.

It will feature the voices of some of Nigeria's finest actors - Kalu Ikeagwu, Patrick Doyle, Bimbo Akintola, Bola Edwards, and others. It will also feature fresh voices of 11 and 13-year-old Jessica and David Edwards. Popular music producer and songwriter, Clement 'DJ Klem' Kponu and versatile film composer, Ava Momoh are the brains behind LBMM's original 14-tracker album.

The CEO/founder of Hot Ticket Productions and the film's Executive Producer and Producer, Blessing Amidu, who reiterated the importance of an exhilarating family-focused entertainment during this moment in history said: "This year has been a tough one for the world. Families have had to deal with a pandemic, economic challenges and civil unrests. As we approach the end of the year, it is important to provide some succour and means of escape and release for children and the entire family. We strongly believe that entertainment is a powerful tool for this.

"We hope the fantastic universe of Ladybuckit and the Motley Mopsters will serve as a source of joy and laughter for Nigerian families and millions of people around the world, during the festive season and for many years to come."

According to her, "it took 30 incredible talents and two years to make this movie. We are truly proud of the production and are privileged to have been able to tell a great Nigerian story."

LBMM is valued at approximately $1 million. Since the release of the first teaser in August 2020, interest for the movie has been steadily growing, especially among fans of animation, cartoons and Nollywood watchers.

"With scenes showing notable Nigerian landmarks and historical places such as Oloibiri, a community in Bayelsa State, where crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in 1956, it is expected that parts of the movie will serve as a flashback to Nigeria's early years.

Bisi Adetayo, the movie's Director also served as the lead animator. He referenced the power in the LBMM story, saying, "we want to take everyone's imagination on a ride. It was a thrill to have incredible actors voice a powerful story and just let our creativity run free."

According to PwC, the Nigerian entertainment and media industry will be worth $10 billion by 2023, while Forbes reports that animation is currently fueling the emergence of a creative economy across the African continent.

With the release of Ladybuckit and the Motley Mopsters, Nigeria and its abundant supply of extraordinary talents is taking its rightful place at the forefront of this creative explosion.

All Africa

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New Nollywood film shines a light on human trafficking in Nigeria

 

Dressed in a transparent and colorful blouse, a sex worker in Lagos, the commercial center of Nigeria jumps out the window of a room at a party to avoid having sex with a potential customer.
She is seen, heels in her hand, running away from the party and eventually getting into a bus heading back to a brothel, where she lives with other sex workers.

These scenes are from the Netflix original film, "Oloture," in which we later find out that the sex worker, also named Oloture, is a Nigerian journalist who is undercover to expose sex trafficking in the country.

Every year, tens of thousands of people are trafficked from Nigeria, particularly Edo State in the nation's south, which has become one of Africa's largest departure points for irregular migration.
The International Organization for Migration (IMO) estimates that 91% victims trafficked from Nigeria are women, and their traffickers have sexually exploited more than half of them.
 

Through "Oloture," the difficult realities of these women, particularly those who are sexually exploited, come to light. It shows how they are recruited and trafficked overseas for commercial gain.
Directed by award-winning Nigerian filmmaker, Kenneth Gyang, the film features Nollywood actors including Sharon Ooja, Omoni Oboli and Blossom Chukwujekwu.
 

Mo Abudu, executive producer of "Oloture," told CNN that the crime drama was inspired by the numerous cases of trafficking around the world and in Nigeria.

"There have been many reports around the world highlighting human trafficking and modern slavery. It has been in our faces. I dug and dug and did a bit more research, and when I came across the numbers and saw how much was made annually from human trafficking, I was totally shocked," she said.
Human trafficking is a $150 billion global industry. And two-thirds of this figure is generated from sexual exploitation, according to a 2014 report by the International Labor Organization.
Abudu -- who is also CEO of EbonyLife Films, which produced "Oloture" -- added that the film mirrored some real-life reports by journalists who had gone undercover to expose sex trafficking patterns in the country.

One of them, she said, was a 2014 report by journalist Tobore Ovuorie, in the Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times. 

"Upon research, we found that many journalists had gone undercover to report on human trafficking. But the Premium Times article did spark our interest as some of it plays out in the film," Abudu said.

Easy prey for traffickers

Ovuorie, whose report was credited in "Oloture," told CNN that women often get trafficked as a result of their need to make money abroad. Ovuorie said she met many women in the course of her reporting who wanted to get to Europe in hopes of better job opportunities that would earn them more money.

"People were motivated by greed, you know, the need to get rich. I spoke with the women I was supposed to be trafficked with, and many of them wanted better lives motivated by money. There was one girl who had never earned more than 50,000 naira (about $130) as salary since she graduated from university," she told CNN.

Most of the women were fleeing harsh economic conditions and poverty, making them easy prey for traffickers, Ovuorie said.

During Ovuorie's investigation, she said she posed as a sex worker on the streets of Lagos, looking to travel to Europe.

Her plan worked. She was eventually linked with a trafficker who promised to get her to Italy. In partnership with ZAM Chronicles and Premium Times, she documented her experience.

After a series of "humiliating trainings" and physical abuse, she said she was told she and other girls would receive a fake passport in preparation to be smuggled outside the country through the border in Benin in West Africa.
She escaped at the border.

Physical and sexual abuse   

Many women who are trafficked in Nigeria face sexual, physical and mental abuse, according to a 2019 report by Human Rights Watch.
 

The rights group interviewed many women who said they were trafficked within and across national borders under life-threatening conditions as they were starved, raped and extorted.
On some occasions, according to the report, they were forced into prostitution where they were made to have abortions and coerced to have sex with customers when they were sick, menstruating or pregnant.
 

"Oloture" portrays some of these harsh realities as the lead character (played by Ooja) suffers sexual violence and physical abuse, including being whipped by one of her traffickers.
It was important to depict the reality of sex trafficking so viewers can understand the experiences of women who are forced into the trade, Gyang, the director, told CNN.
 

"I wanted people to know that this is the reality of these ladies. People always want closure but life is not about a Hollywood ending; you can't always get a happy ending," he said.
While directing the film, Gyang visited places with sex workers to get a better idea of how they live and work, he said.
 

"I actually went to places where we have sex workers in Lagos with one of the producers of the film. We wanted to really capture their lives so that we would be able to show it realistically in the movie. We talked to them, and some of the rooms we used in the movie were actually used previously by sex workers," he explained.

'The most impactful movie we have ever done'

The film was shot in 21 days towards the end of 2018, he said. Post-production was covered in 2019, and it was released Friday on Netflix.

In just days, it has become the top watched movie in Nigeria and is among the top 10 watched movies in the world on Netflix. 

 
"It's huge for me as a filmmaker that people have access to the film from all over the world. I want many people as possible to see it and have conversations about sex trafficking," Gyang said. 

The film is doing well in countries like Switzerland, Brazil, and South Africa because it is authentic and "deals with the truth," Abudu said.

"EbonyLife has done seven movies. But this is the most impactful one we have ever done. And the most important," Abudu said.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the law enforcement agency in charge of combating human trafficking in Nigeria, wants the film to be made available to people in rural communities who don't have access to Netflix.

"I haven't seen the movie, but if it is trying to portray the ills and dangers of trafficking, then it's fine since that is going to raise awareness," Julie Okah-Donli, the director-general of the agency said.
And while she is happy that "Oloture" is shining the light on human trafficking, she told CNN that women mostly targeted by traffickers may not get to watch it.

"The people watching it on Netflix all know what trafficking is. It needs to go to those girls in rural communities where traffickers go to bring them from. Those are the girls that the awareness should go to," Okah-Donli said. 

With more people partnering with NAPTIP and raising awareness of the dangers of trafficking, sex trafficking will be minimized in Nigeria, she said. 

By Aisha Salaudeen 

CNN

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Netflix Unveils Nigerian Original Series, Three Films

Netflix on Monday unveiled a new Nigerian original series and three new films from the African country.

"The new series and films, which are at different stages of production while others are ready to premiere, will join the growing slate of Nigerian content on the service and debut to 193 million members in 190 countries around the world," the streaming giant said.

The new original series is an untitled young adult drama series created and produced by Inkblot Productions. It follows the story of Ishaya, "a charismatic teenager and talented artist from a poor family, whose dreams suddenly appear within reach when a prestigious scholarship to the most exclusive school in the country catapults him into the luxurious world of Nigeria's 1% – all while a huge secret threatens his newfound status and, ultimately, his family's safety."

Created by Chinaza Onuzo and Dami Elebe who serve as executive producer and head writer, respectively, the six-episode series will be directed by Onuzo, Tope Oshin and Niyi Akinmolayan. Funke Akindele is confirmed as playing one of the lead characters with more casting details to follow. Zulumoke Oyibo and Damola Ademola will serve as executive producers.

"Netflix is proud to continue to invest in more original content from Nigeria," said Dorothy Ghettuba, the lead for African originals at Netflix. "We’re also thrilled to grow our existing creative partnerships while forming new ones with Chinaza and the amazing Inkblot team who will now join the growing list of Nigerian partners."

Said Onuzo: "We’re thrilled to be partnering with the Netflix team to tell the story of Nigerian youth on a global scale. We cannot wait to share with the world what it feels like to grow up in one of the most dynamic countries on the planet."

Netflix also unveiled deals for three Nigerian films from filmmakers Mo Abudu, Kunle Afolayan and Kemi Adetiba that will premiere on the streaming service. They are Òlòtūré, Citation and King of Boys II.

The first is the story of a young female journalist who goes undercover as a prostitute to expose a human trafficking syndicate. The film is part of Netflix’s partnership with Mo Abudu and her production company Ebonylife. The movie will launch globally on Oct. 2. Directed by Kenneth Gyang, its cast includes Sharon Ooja, Omowunmi Dada, Omoni Oboli, Blossom Chukwujekwu and Wofai Fada.

Citation, from director Kunle Afolayan and produced by Golden Effects Pictures, will hit Netflix globally on Nov. 6. It is the coming-of-age story of Moremi, a bright university student who forms a bond with her charismatic and well-connected professor who ends up sexually harassing her. The film follows Moremi’s quest for justice and stars Jimmy Jean Louis, Gabriel Afolayan, Ini Edo, Joke Silva, Adjetey Anang and newcomer Temi Otedola.

King of Boys II is the sequel to director Kemi Adetiba's 2018 crime thriller, in which a businesswoman and crime boss is drawn into a power struggle that threatens all she holds dear. Set to launch globally in the first half of 2021, the movie begins with Eniola Salami's triumphant return, after a five-year exile, to Lagos City. "Not content with the prospect of a fresh start," she this time aims even higher than before. The movies features returning stars Sola Sobowale, Remilekun "Reminisce" Safaru, Tobechukwu "iLLBliss" Ejiofor, and Toni Tones, as well as new talent in Richard Mofe-Damijo, Nse Ikpe-Etim, and Efa Iwara.

"These Netflix original films demonstrate how we’re building a home for the best-in-class Nigerian content for our members in Nigeria and beyond," said Ben Amadasun, Netflix’s director of licensing and co-productions in Africa. "It’s amazing to see how Nigerian films and series resonate with audiences around the world. By making it easy for people to watch films and shows from other countries, we can help them build empathy and develop a shared understanding of the world."

By Georg Szalai

Hollywood Reporter

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The Nigerian filmmakers risking jail with lesbian movie Ife

Two Nigerian filmmakers face the prospect of imprisonment if they ignore the stern warning of the authorities and proceed with the release of a movie about a lesbian relationship.
The dramatic face-off with the regulators - the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) - is worthy of a film itself.

Producer Pamela Adie and director Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim are determined that Ife (meaning "love" in the Yoruba language) reaches a Nigerian audience, but the NFVCB says it will not be approved as it violates the country's strict laws on homosexuality.

International premiere

To get around this, the filmmakers are planning a surprise online release to catch the regulators off-guard. The NFVCB, however, is diligently monitoring all digital platforms to prevent the movie from getting out.

According to NFVCB boss Adebayo Thomas, Adie and Ikpe-Etim could be jailed for promoting homosexuality in a country where same-sex relationships are forbidden and can carry a 14-year sentence.

They are organising a private screening in the commercial capital, Lagos, at the end of the month, for which they believe they do not need to get permission.
Ife will also get an international premiere in Canada in October.

Adie said the aim of the film was to show an accurate picture of lesbian and bisexual women in Nigerian movies.

If a lesbian woman does appear in a standard Nollywood movie they are often portrayed as being possessed, influenced by bad friends or forced into homosexuality and always needing "saving", she told the BBC.

"You rarely see stories about LGBT people, especially about queer women that speak to the realities of our lives.

"Ife was made to bridge the gap and to get the conversation going in Nigeria."

Coming out to a Nigerian mother

Ife is a story about two women falling in love as they spend three days together. They "then have their love tested by the realities of being in a same-sex relationship in a country like Nigeria", according to the publicity for the film.

If July's trailer, where sex is hinted at but not actually shown, is anything to go by, then Ife certainly pushes the boundaries of telling the LGBT story by Nigerian movie standards.

In one shot, the two protagonists, Ife and Adaora are in bed talking about love and the challenges faced by LGBT people especially within their families.

Their conversation forms the spine of the teaser for the film.

"I told my mum first, took her about a week to come to terms with it," Ife, played by Uzoamaka Aniunoh, says talking about revealing that she was a lesbian.

"Which is short for a Nigerian mother," interjects Adaora, played by Cindy Amadi.
"Is it too soon to say I might be in love with you?" asks Adaora as they cuddle.
"We are lesbians, this is the perfect time," answers Ife.

'It has to be censored'

Homosexuality is an extremely contentious issue in many parts of Africa and Nigeria is no different.
It is a highly religious and traditional society and its influential Christian and Muslim organisations oppose homosexuality.

As a consequence, Nigeria is one of 30 countries on the continent where it is criminalised.
The legislation outlawing same-sex relationships was passed in 2014 and built on the colonial-era prohibition of sodomy. Police in Nigeria have cracked down on people suspected of homosexuality, forcing most into hiding.

The feeling of being sidelined and the need to challenge beliefs that homosexuality is immoral is what inspired director Ikpe-Etim to take on the project.

"Before now, we have been told one-sided stories. What we are doing with this film is normalising the queer experience, we are normalising the LGBT romance.

"It will begin to erase that shame that LBQ [lesbian, bisexual and queer] women face," she told the BBC.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community in Africa is becoming increasingly vocal and visible, thanks to the internet providing a space for films, talk shows and websites.

But that has not stopped filmmakers from getting into trouble with authorities.
The head of the NFVCB said there was no space for Ife or other homosexual movies in Nigeria, citing the law.

"There's a standing law that prohibits homosexuality, either in practice or in a movie or even in a theatre or on stage. If it's content from Nigeria, it has to be censored," Mr Thomas told the BBC.
He said that whatever the platform was, "as long as it's Nigerian content and it's telling a Nigerian story, then we have a right to it".

But there is no plan for large-scale screenings of Ife in Nigerian cinemas or selling the DVD, as the producers want to make it available online as pay-on-demand.
But even that will get them into trouble with the regulators.

Increasing acceptance of LGBTQ people

"If it did not pass through NFVCB and it is released, the filmmakers will be prosecuted according to the law," Mr Thomas said.

"As long as it's Nigerian content, we will pull it down because we have collaborations with Google, YouTube and other key players."

But that has not deterred the producers and Adie says her team will continue as planned, as they believe they have done nothing wrong and do not plan to seek permission for an online release.
This is not the first time an LGBTQ-themed movie has fallen foul of regulators on the continent.
Stories of Our Lives, a collection of five short films based on stories of LGBTQ life in Kenya was banned in 2014 for being "contrary to national norms".

This was also the fate of Rafiki, Kenya's first film about a lesbian relationship, which went on to be the East African nation's first film to premiere at the Cannes film festival and also receive an Oscar nomination.

Inxeba/The Wound, a South African film about a relationship between two men in the context of the Xhosa initiation ritual was also banned from mainstream South African cinemas in 2018.
Despite the set-backs, some in the LGBTQ community in Africa say they are gradually gaining confidence and acceptance and link it to the increased visibility in films and literature which are encouraging greater tolerance among younger generations.

A 2019 survey of attitudes in Nigeria showed an increase in acceptance of LGBTQ people - though the balance was still tilted against them.

Some 60% of Nigerians surveyed said they would not accept a family member who was LGBTQ, but this was significantly lower than the 83% who put themselves in that category in 2017.
The need for further change is why people like Ikpe-Etim want to keep telling the stories of the LGBTQ community.

"As a member of an under-represented group, you are constantly at the mercy of people who don't understand what it means to be queer.
"I knew if I wanted the society to view LGBTQ people in a different light, I had to tell the full story," she said.

By Azeezat Olaoluwa

BBC 


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Nigeria's 'Kannywood' films soar online thanks to virus

At a time when the coronavirus is wreaking havoc on businesses around the world, the film industry in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north is going from strength to strength.

The region's movie machine -- dubbed Kannywood after its largest city Kano -- has become the dominant source of entertainment for West Africa's 80 million Hausa speakers.

Since springing up in 1992 with just seven production companies, the industry has grown to include 502 production outfits and 97 editing studios.

It now employs more than 30,000 people, according to the Kano chapter of the Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria.

While Kannywood films have the same themes of love, revenge and betrayal as those churned out by the prolific Nollywood film industry in the predominantly Christian south, the content must adhere to strict Islamic rules.

Northflix, Kannywood's fledgling online streaming platform, has seen its client base soar since authorities imposed lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic in March.

Its subscriber base of 40,000 has nearly doubled, while revenue has tripled, CEO and co-founder Jamil Abdussalam told AFP.

"Coronavirus has been a blessing to us business-wise, despite the disruptions it has caused to the global economy," he said.

"It was not by chance, but a result of a conscious and concerted business strategy".

Kabiru Sufi, a Kano-based economist who follows trends in Kannywood, attributed the success of streaming platforms to their astute business sense and technology.

Abdussalam said Northflix formerly used the pay-per-view system but quickly switched to flat-rate subscriptions after the virus emerged in Asia and Europe, knowing that it "would reach all corners of the world".

The fee is just 1,500 naira ($4) a month in addition to subscribers' smartphone and internet costs.

The lockdown, which saw cinemas, hotels, bars and other recreational outlets shut down, was a boon for Northflix as idle Nigerians turned to their mobile phones to stream their favourite movies.

That opportunity also came as producers were desperately seeking an alternative market for their films with cinemas and DVD stores shuttered.

- 'A lifesaver' -

Northflix was the answer.

"It was a lifesaver for film producers who would not have had the avenue of making money from their movies," said Kano-based filmmaker Abdulkarim Mohammed.

And subscribers have stuck to the platform despite the easing of the lockdown, according to Abdussalam, because of the convenience it offers as well as the fact that pirated copies can no longer be found on the streets.

The new business environment has challenges both old and new.

Nigerian telecom services are notoriously poor, with frequent signal disruptions, coupled with exorbitant data costs which affect online-based firms.

But Northflix has been coping, the owners say.

"With a single (reception signal) bar, you can watch a movie without disruption, it doesn't freeze and our network is capable of buffering the video," Abdussalam said.

Other issues include censorship, criticism on religious grounds and piracy.

Muslim clerics and government officials say the platform promotes foreign values by mimicking Hollywood and Bollywood productions at the expense of the regional Hausa culture.

The industry has also come under state-imposed restrictions and scrutiny which filmmakers say are killing creativity.

Under the law, every film must be cleared by the censorship board which requires strict adherence to Islamic injunctions, including a ban on touching between men and women.

Defaulters are usually sanctioned.

But Northflix's location in the capital Abuja puts it beyond the jurisdiction of the Kano censoring agency.

"It has helped us bypass the restrictions... and fight piracy," said Sani Danja, a leading Kannywood actor and producer.

France24

How a grandmother from Nigeria ended up in Beyoncé's 'Black Is King'

Mojisola Odegbami did not anticipate that a trip to the United States would land her a part in a visual album by one of the most popular music artists in the world -- Beyoncé.

The 69-year-old Nigerian grandmother appeared in two music videos in Beyoncé's highly anticipated "Black Is King" album, which premiered on Disney+ on Friday.

The album is based on the singer's soundtrack album, "The Lion King: The Gift," which was created for the 2019 remake of the original Disney film "The Lion King."

In a video, speaking about the release of the album, Beyoncé said the goal of the project is to show that "black is regal and rich in history, in purpose and in lineage."

Multiple African artists including Nigeria's Yemi Alade, Ghana's Shatta Wale and Cameroon'sSalatiel also appeared in the almost 90-minute album.

Odegbami appeared in "Bigger" taking on the role of an African queen, and in "Mood 4 Eva"where she was dressed in African attire, including a gele, a traditional head wrap commonly worn in West and Southern Africa.

She told CNN that her journey to being cast began with a medical trip to California in July 2019, where she met Folajomi "FJ" Akinmurele, a young actor. "I was staying with my daughter's friend, and this friend of hers has a 7-year-old son. The son, FJ, is the main character in "Black Is King," Odegbami explained.

"Each time he needed to go for practice, I was the one who drove him there cause his mum would have gone to work. At that point, Beyoncé's staff got to know me as grandma Moji," she added.

Participating in 'Black Is King' 

Even though Beyoncé's staff knew Odegbami, she did not get invited to cast in the album until her daughter's friend took a leap and signed her up with the talent agency responsible for choosing characters for the album.

"I was out shopping one day and she called me, and asked that I come home immediately. I was scared, you know. She said "Grandma, it's very important I need you to please come back home," she said.
When Odegbami got home that afternoon, she said her daughter's friend confessed to signing her up for a part on the album.

"That was how I found myself on the way to L.A .that same day for a part in the album. I initially didn't want to go but she kept begging me, so I agreed," she said.

After a two-hour drive to the set of "Black Is King," in Los Angeles, she was ushered in by Beyoncé's staff and given instructions on scenarios to act.

She was tested with fun parts to play like receiving a baby, holding it, and putting a mark on the baby's forehead. "I was just having fun, you know. Everything was going on smoothly, playing those parts I was asked to," she said.

Right after acting out the scenarios, Odegbami said everything happened fast. She was told she would be featuring in the album and meeting Beyoncé.

Meeting Beyoncé
 
Cameras and phones were not allowed on set so she did not get photos of her with the Grammy-winning singer, she said.

Odegbami also was required to sign a nondisclosure agreement, preventing her from revealing details of the video shoot to the public until after the album was released.

"They dressed me up, did my makeup, and chose outfits for me. And then they showed me where to stand on set waiting for Beyoncé," she explained.

The team was able to guess her size correctly from photos and videos her daughter's friend had sent to them, she said.

In a scene in the "Mood 4 Eva" video featuring Jay Z, Childish Gambino, and Malian singer Oumou Sangaré, Odegbami was seated directly at Beyoncé's back, dressed in a colorful pink dress with a cape.

She also wore dark shades, and purple gloves matching her extravagant gele.
And the "Better" video featured her dressed in all-white while walking behind Beyoncé and FJ.

Representing Nigeria

Odegbami said meeting Beyoncé was a wonderful experience. Everyone on set, she said, was receptive and kind.

"I mean before that day I knew there was a singer called Beyoncé, but I had never seen her. My children are her fans. In fact, my last born is always referred to as the Beyoncé of our family. Her siblings call her that," she said.

She added that like her children, she is now a fan of the singer.

Odegbami, who lives in Abeokuta, southwest Nigeria, told CNN that she feels happy to have represented Nigeria, and by extension Africa, in "Black Is King."

It was an opportunity to showcase Nigerian culture through her appearance, she said.
"I give credit to my daughter's friend who saw me fit to represent our culture. She didn't even know what I was going to do on set, she just felt I'd be a right fit to appear in the album," she said.

CNN