Nollywood filmmakers too scared to release their films

Kunle Afolayan

Recent activities of pirates may have thrown a scare among filmmakers and other practitioners in the Nigerian film industry. Investigation shows that some movie directors and producers, who are clearly worried by the frequent leakages of films to the copyright thieves, may have resolved to come up with individual strategies aimed at keeping their works out of the reach of pirates.

Just as award-winning filmmakers, such as Kunle Afolayan and Lancelot Imasuen, appear to be deliberately delaying the distribution of their movies in DVD, others coming into the film industry for the first time have decided to follow their examples by treading carefully.

One of them is Dapo Adeniyi, who has almost finished work on his first film, a screen adaptation of Prof. Wole Soyinka’s memoir, ‘Ake: The Years of Childhood’.

Although the publisher-turned-film director and his crew are ready for the private screening of the film, he insists that it will only be for the purpose of publicity.

Adeniyi does not seem to be in a hurry to organise a public premiere of the movie in Nigeria for two reasons. The first one is the cloud of uncertainty that currently overhangs the polity.

“Nigeria is not ripe for any movie premiere now because of the unfavourable political atmosphere. So we have to wait for things to be sorted out. Otherwise, we would end up spending so much money and something unpleasant happens,” he says.

Second, the director is scared of the activities of pirates. Having seen what these criminals did to ‘Half of A Yellow Sun’, which was directed by his cousin, Biyi Bandele and Ayo Makun’s ’30 Days in Atlanta’, he has made up his mind not to take a plunge in the market yet.

“After seeing a part of ‘Ake’ in November, Prof. Soyinka warned me to be very careful,” Adeniyi says, admitting that he has decided to heed the Nobel laureate’s counsel by going the extra mile to ensure that copyright thieves do not lay their greedy paws on his film.

“It will be impossible for anybody to gain access to it at this stage. Nobody can pirate a film that is still in progress. Not even in my studio. Besides, the files of ‘Ake’ are quite heavy. We haven’t even transferred them into any small format. Even if anybody decides to copy the film, it will take an awfully long time to do that and there is no way I won’t catch him in the act,” he says.

While Adeniyi urges movie fans to watch out for the official trailer of ‘Ake’ on the Internet any time from now, Afolayan says he is not prepared to release ‘October 1’ in DVD till he has finished with other distribution channels.

Obviously the latest onslaught by faceless pirates, believed to be operating from undiscovered hideouts within the popular Alaba International Market in Lagos, has set off a warning bell and the celebrated filmmaker is not eager to ignore it.

“The sale of DVDs in Nigeria is an exercise in futility. The moment the DVD of any movie is released into the market, the film gets pirated. So I always like to maximise other available distribution channels before turning to DVDs. All my films have appeared on DVD, but I take my time to do it,” he says.

Afolayan quickly dismisses the notion that filmmakers in Nigeria do not always expect to make much money from the sale of DVDs. Considering the size of the Nigerian population, he believes that selling films in DVDs is a very good way of earning a big income in Nollywood. Unfortunately, piracy – that persistent social evil that Nigerian filmmakers have learnt to loathe – is not really making that to happen.

In the absence of proper legislation against copyright infringement and effective action by law enforcement agents to stop the activities of copyright thieves, it seems that the movie director and his ilk are doomed to watch helplessly as pirates continue to feed fat on the products of their sweat.

Admitting that there is very little or nothing that filmmakers can do to check piracy in the present circumstances, he says, “As filmmakers, we cannot take the law into our own hands, if the government fails in its duty to protect intellectual property in this country. It is like asking us to plant cassava, process it into garri, sell the garri and consume it ourselves. This is not possible, you know.

“While the filmmakers produce the films, the distributors will do their jobs and the law of the land should produce everybody involved in this chain of activity. I think everything depends on the government. It is only the government that can check the activities of pirates in the Alaba International Market where they are based. It is only the government that can shut down this market and put them out of their illicit business.”

Perhaps echoing the thoughts of other movie producers and directors, Afolayan wonders why films have continued to fall into the hands of pirates, despite supposedly fool-proof arrangements with officially recognised distribution outlets in the country. Since filmmakers have been rather reluctant to confront it, he thinks the matter should be addressed urgently.

“This is the part we are not talking about. I think it is high time we tackled this issue. We need to find the source of leakages before we can decide what exactly to do to check them. If the Alaba people don’t have access to films, how will they pirate them? So we need to dig deep to find out the source of these leakages,” he says.

Meanwhile, our correspondent gathered that filmmakers may unite to find a permanent solution to piracy and other problems affecting the industry. Discussions are ongoing and a decision will be reached any time from now.