OKEY OGUNJIOFOR RETURNS WITH AMINA***MANY YEARS AFTER LIVING IN BONDAGE

SHOWDISH

 

Okey Ogunjiofor

After many years of sparking the fire that ignited the film form known as  Nollywood, film maker Okey Ogunjiofor has arrived with Amina.

The long awaited movie which was directed by top ranked director Izu Ojukwu and the Spaniard Peter Kriel as Director of photography features the best of Nigerian artistes including Clarion Chukwura, Ali Nuhu, Lucy Ameh, Yakubu Mohammed and a host of others who went far in re enacting the exploits of one of Africa’s celebrated heroines.

Speaking with Executive producer Okey Ogunjiofor, he said the movie took time to berth because  according to him “an adage says, “Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well”. First and foremost, getting authentic Amina story that is acceptable to all was very difficult because there were many versions coupled with the fact that there was no single compendium containing the Amina story.

Again, getting and setting up the place to shoot this epic movie (Location, and we chose Jos for its beautiful filmic topography) took time, then recreating the ancient palaces and cities of Zazzau, how do we get the costumes and props of 15^th/16^th century? So I went to the North with 86 crewmembers, and we recruited over 1000 Northern artists – camped them for three months, trained them on how to ride horses, then, trained them on how to use the swords to fight on horse backs, before we went into the shoot proper. Then we built ancient buildings of mud and stones in that place for this shoot because there was no place we could find a semblance of Amina’s palace in those days that wouldn’t have the trappings of modernity. So, we needed top set, props and costume designers to re-create. And, these things cost money but in the long run they were all worth the pains.

So expectedly, any box office hit able to hold its own with the competition globally requires time and money.  Amina is a film that will compete favorably with movies from all over the world and take the Nigerian Film industry to a new level so there was no need to rush it. Specifically, we took time on the edited film with our partner studios inGermany, Canada and United States for quality Visual Effects, Picture Grading, Sound design (Foley, ADR), Music score etc. These were necessary to achieve the kind of film that would not only thrill audiences around the world, make Nigeria and Bank of Industry (BOI) proud, but a film that will attract international appeal and distribution, thereby generating enough revenues to repay our loans, encourage more investors to look favorably at Nollywood because of the profit margin.

On his plan for the movie, Ogunjiofor said “Presently, we are focused on some International film festivals and private screening to Well-meaning patrons and Corporates. The dates for the premier and theatrical release will be officially announced to the public via a press conference.

The primary reason for every creative enterprise is entertainment but apart from this, there are otherplans for embarking on Queen Amina film.

As the “Father of Nollywood” and in keeping with our visionwhich is to constantly chart a new course for others to follow, especially regarding the movement towards the investors’ market, we needed to show what is possible so that producers and investors can have a template upon which to base their calculations and decisions. This movie, which is a celebration of our historical heroine, is a cut above anything that has come out of Nigeria since the inception of Nollywood. We hope this film will once again change the landscape of film in Africa like Living in Bondage did in 1992 and then usher Nollywood into her final frontier which I call “the investors’ market.

By Fred Iwenjora