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Slumdog
Millionaire and Nollywood
Friday March
6,2009 |
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By
Reuben Abati |
TOYIN Subair, the founder and Chief Executive
Officer of HiTV, the Nigerian-owned cable television
network, sat across the table at the Sheraton. He
couldn't contain his excitement about Slumdog
Millionaire. "That is what our actors and actresses
in Nollywood should be aiming for", he exclaimed. "A
single rags to riches story by Indian actors. It was
the star film at this year's Oscars. If the Indians
can do it, Nigerians can do it too. If we want to
rebrand Nigeria, that is what we should be doing.
Slumdog Millionaire is a great branding opportunity
for India." He is absolutely right. But a Nigerian
film winning the Oscars will require a lot more than
wishful thinking.
Everyone is talking about Slumdog Millionaire. It
won at this year's Oscars, on Sunday, February 22,
eight Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director,
Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound Mixing, Best
Film Editing, Best Original Scene, Best Original
Song, and Best Cinematography. Directed by 52-year
old British film director, Danny Boyle, with Indian
actors and French financial co-support, Slumdog
Millionaire is a low-budget, bilingual,
(Hindi/English), movie. The screenplay by Simon
Beaufoy is based on the novel by Vikas Swarup,
titled Q and A. The Western press has been quick to
classify the film as British, the director is
British, and it was originally sponsored by British
companies - Celador Films and Film4 Production but
there is no doubt that essentially, Slumdog
Millionaire is a major triumph for the Indian movie
industry, otherwise known as Bollywood and for
Indian literature and art. When the Oscar-winning
Slumdog ensemble returned to India after the Oscars,
the Mumbai Airport was besieged by thousands of
Indian patriots who came to share with the actors
and actresses, including six children, who are now
national heroes, the glory that they had brought to
their nation.
Slumdog tells a simple, human story of how a street
kid rose from the slums to become a millionaire,
having won the top prize in an Indian version of Who
Wants to be a Millionaire? With a series of
flashbacks and amidst dance and extreme naturalism,
the film conveys pictures of passion, and love,
relying heavily on the modes and tenor of Indian
commercial cinema. It is easily one of the most
successful films of all time. Indian cinematography
is popular internationally, and it is particularly
so among Nigerians, but Slumdog Millionaire again
reinforces the view that a well-told story will find
its own audiences whether it is acted by Eskimos,
Indians, or Nigerians.
In an age of globalization, cultural products are
expanding the boundaries and limits of expression,
providing a communitarian sense of values in ways
hitherto unimagined. The triumph of Slumdog
Millionaire at this year's Oscars is proof of how
increasingly globalised the Oscars have become. Is
there a possibility that some day Nigerian actors
and actresses, working at home, will gain quality
international recognition and win the Oscar? It is
not impossible. Nigeria boasts of abundant talents
in culture and other fields. Nigerians have won the
Nobel Prize, the Grammy Award, the Pulitzer, the
Olympics Gold Medal...an Oscar Prize is not beyond
us.
It has taken Indian cinema 90 years before it could
seize Hollywood by storm, and inflict Indian faces
as box office heroes, across North America and
Europe. It needs not take Nollywood that long. At
the moment, Nigerian movies represent perhaps the
country's best branding opportunity across Africa.
Thanks to cable satellite television, Multichoice/DSTV,
Nigerian movies are shown everyday on the African
Magic channel. From North Africa to Cape Town, our
actors and actresses have become famous. Nigerian
traditional culture and customs have become
continent-wide symbols. It is not unusual these
days, to find other Africans calling a Nigerian "Igwe!",
a phrase that is taken straight from Nigerian
movies. The Nigerian home video industry provides
employment for many and it has effectively
advertised the Nigerian potential in this line of
business. Nollywood is the largest producer of
movies after Bollywood and Hollywood. But to take
advantage of globalization, and to attract outside
attention and investment as Bollywood does, the
Nigerian movie industry must address challenges of
capacity, organization and quality.
Slumdog Millionaire is a small budget film, which
shows that producing a good film is not necessarily
a function of cash, but art and imagination. Funding
is a major challenge in Nollywood, but it has been
turned into an obstacle and a threat due to the
failure of standards. The same movies that have
brought so much attention to Nigeria are not often
the product of art and creativity, but of expediency
and obstructive politics. The business is dominated
by so-called marketers who provide the funds for the
production of the films and who also insist on
usurping the functions of the movie director, the
casting director and the artistic director.
Marketers whose only relevance is the cash that they
provide and the retail outlets that they run,
dictating the artistic content of Nollywood are
partly responsible for the observed ills in the
industry: the deluge of sub-standard story lines,
unimaginative cloning of story lines with so many of
the movies looking and sounding alike, the lack of
imagination in casting, and a complete, or
near-complete absence of ambition.
With the global economic crisis and dwindling
resources, the proliferation of second-rate movies
in Nollywood may worsen. Leaving the industry almost
entirely in the hands of speculators exposes
government's inability to see the importance of
Nollywood. Through such instruments as the Cultural
Policy of Nigeria (1988), National Film Policy
(1992), the Mass Communication Policy (1990), the
Nigerian Film Corporation Act (1979), the Nigerian
Copyright Act (1988) and the National Film and Video
Censors Board Act (1993), the Nigerian Government
has tried to pay lip service to the importance of
culture. But there is not yet a demonstration of the
understanding of the nexus between culture and
development, culture and foreign relations, and the
strategic place of Nollywood in this interface. Both
India's Bollywood and America's Hollywood may be
seen by outsiders as "big business" but they have
roots that run deep into the heart of respective
national systems and politics.
The Nigerian government at all levels, must begin to
take a more serious interest in the movie industry
and by extension in culture and the arts, by
providing facilities and an enabling environment to
facilitate production, distribution and exhibition,
and the integrity of cultural work. Slumdog
Millionaire didn't just happen - it is a by-product
of years of national investment in culture. It owes
its inspiration in nearly every respect, to the
Hindi cinema. And just how central and sensitive a
cultural product could be, or function as a brand is
evident in the extreme emotions that Slumdog
Millionaire has generated in India. While its
success has been embraced by many Indians, its
content has also been criticized by Indian
nationalists who protest that its advertisement of
Indian slums is distasteful. Slum dwellers in India
have carried placards saying "I am not a dog." The
film was initially dismissed locally for
romanticizing poverty and as a piece of
post-colonial racist condescension. But with 6
Oscars, 4 Golden Globes, 7 BAFTA awards and 5
Critics' Choice awards, the film has become a cause
celebre. The ruling Congress Party has even bought
the exclusive rights to use the winning song in the
film, "Jai Ho" ("Be Victorious") as campaign song.
This cross-territorial impact of the film is a
fitting demonstration of the power of art.
There is a crying need for professionalism in
Nollywood. The industry, despite its popularity and
impact is gradually being overtaken by home-grown
mediocrity. Every actor and actress is a potential
producer, movie director and screenplay writer. This
"jack-of-all-trades" mentality reduces the quality
of the output. When this is not the case, a typical
Nigerian film is a family-affair. I have seen quite
a number of these films in which the cast and crew
are made up of husband, wife, brothers and children.
Casting is not determined by ability but filial
relations. The dialogue is poor.
There are a few good directors: Teco Benson, Amaka
Igwe, Zeb Ejiro, Chidi Chikere, Tunde, Kelani, Tade
Ogidan, Izu Chukwu ... Many of the actors and
actresses are truly talented, but the absence of a
filtering process encourages the influx into the
industry of so many pretty faces without ability.
Nollywood can benefit from internal organization.
There is an Actors Guild of Nigeria, but it is
heavily politicized, divided as it is into ethnic
cartels and atomistic ego units. The indigenous
language movie actors and actresses (in Yoruwood,
and Kannywood) are just as guilty in this respect as
their counter-parts in the English languages movies.
A Motion Picture Council of Nigeria is long overdue,
with a responsibility to raise standards and enforce
professionalism.
Nollywood stakeholders must see the success of
Slumdog Millionaire as a personal challenge. At the
individual level, the actors, actresses, producers,
directors, etc. must endeavour to raise the level of
their performance by seeking fresh knowledge about
art and film. There is much in Slumdog Millionaire
that is about individual accomplishment and
distinction. It is this that Nollywood must aim for
if it hopes to remain relevant.
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