SMC brief
SMC PAN-AFRICAN UNIVERSITY
April 2013 2013
An in house publication of the School of Media and Communication, Pan-African University
R
ecently, while waiting to be attended to in an office, I got into a conversation with a rather precocious five year old. In an effort to make good use of time, I was attempting to carry out some work while waiting, and she asked me: “What are you doing?” “I am marking scripts.” “What does that mean?” I was a little stumped at how to explain the concept of grading to my little friend in language that she would understand. I was saved by her seven-year-old brother, who supplied the adequate words. Then, it was their turn to teach, and I received a little lesson about pictogrammes. Fo l l o w i n g a l u l l i n t h e conversation, I returned to my work, but when I looked up for a moment, my friend asked me, “Have you finished?” I replied in the negative. Then, “Are you thinking?” Most assuredly, I was. I was thinking about the importance of a good educational foundation for children. My young interlocutors showed an acuity and confidence that indicated that a lot of care was being given to their education. But of course, a formal education is not everything; parental nurturing is required to bring out the best in a child. Although this issue is not about child upbringing, we do have a section in which the emphasis, in a sense, is on quality education. Class Snapshots presents various initiatives of SMC towards enriching its educational offerings. These initiatives reflect the desire of SMC to create a space of encounter between the classroom and the industry. I hope you will also enjoy our lead story on Tunde Kelani and the excellent piece on media practice by Mr. Richard Ikiebe. Ikechukwu Obiaya newsletter@smc.edu.ng
Indigenous Cinema:
The Key to Global Success
I
ndigenous cinema is the key to global success for the Nigerian film industry. Tunde Kelani stated this while speaking at the Filmmakers' Forum organised by the GTBank Nollywood Studies Centre of the School of Media and Communication, Pan-African University, on the 25th of April, 2013. Indicating the diversity and multilingualism prevalent in the film industry, Kelani noted that more films were being produced in the indigenous languages than in English. His interest in indigenous language films, he explained, was due to the influence on him of the great indigenous cinema of the early Nigerian filmmakers. According to him, “There's a validity for indigenous language cinema as something you can package and take to the global arena.” However, as Kelani went on to note, “Cinema in Nigeria at the moment is like an adventure.” He was responding to a question about the possibility of the filmmaker recouping production costs through the cinema houses. He pointed out that Nigeria currently boasts of a ratio of only one screen to three million people. This inadequate number of cinema houses thus makes
it a challenge for filmmakers to recoup all their costs through that avenue. Kelani went on to point out that the Nigerian filmmaker also has to deal with the fact that the cinema houses give preference to foreign films over Nigerian films. Thus, the Nigerian films, for instance, tend to be shown in time slots that do not favour large audiences. While emphasising the need to find solutions to the problems in the industry, the veteran filmmaker acknowledged the efforts of the Federal and Lagos State governments in this regard. He expressed the hope that the project of the Lagos State government to build community cinemas would yield early fruit. Earlier, Kelani had delighted the audience with a first public showing of a new version of his film, Maami. The large audience present at the occasion was warm in its appreciation. The Filmmakers' Forum is a monthly activity of the GTBank Nollywood Studies Centre. The Centre is focused on the study and promotion of the Nigerian film. It is located in the School of Media and Communication of the Pan-African University and is being funded by GTBank.