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| Amayo Uzo Phillips |
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| Amayo Uzo Philpps |
By Fred Iwenjora
Aki and Pawpaw is seen by many as most popular comedy
characters in Nollywood history but few know much about the man who created the
two characters and made them into a popular film.
He is Imo state born film maker and director, Amayo Uzo
Phillips who is one of Nollywoods most respected.
In a chat with ECD recently, Phillips recalls that he was at
NIKO Hotels one of the actors rendezvous in Enugu when Chinedu Ikedieze (Aki)and
Osita Iheme(Pawpaw) met for the first time.
Said the graduate of theater Arts from the University of Jos
popularly called High Priest by his friends and associates “Having met several
actors, produced and directed several Nollywood movies in its history I see as
most memorable the day I met with the characters and decided to write the
scripts that became one of the most popular characters in Nollywood history:
Aki na Ukwa better corrupted as Aki and Pawpaw.
“I still view it as divine because everything happened so
fast. I had known Chinedu before then as a gregarious young man who either was
still in IMT or had already graduated but he was a regular at Enugu movie arena
trying his luck. But Osita told me he came from Aba to try his hands on acting
since he felt he was talented. I remember vividly that I was directing a
production and we were camped at Niko Hotels Enugu. It was about 10 am on that
day and the crew was waiting for the location bus to take us out. I saw the two
hug each other when they met and I think it was their first time of meeting. It was a big spectacle to see the nostalgia
with which they held unto each other and an idea struck me immediately to write
a script for and about them. I had to observe
them for a few more days and wrote the script in three days. We also shot it in
two and half days
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| Aki and Pawpaw |
According to Phillips “I decided to write a simple comedy
story of two little urchins and their several pranks in the neighborhood using
their physical features as highlight. It was a mirror on my own rascally life
as a child. Now let me shock you; Chinedu got N20,000 for the role while Osita
got N15,000.
“It was late popular movies
marketer KASVID Chukwuka Emelifeownu that marketed it. He did not believe in
the project originally so decided to release through his other label Soft Touch
movies and the rest is history. I don’t
think any other comedy movie can beat the record Aki na Ukwa has created in Nollywood. It was titled Aki na Ukwa by KASVID even
though I called it The Dwarfs in my script.
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| Aki and Pawpaw |
“It was people who started to call it Aki and Pawpaw. It
created a lifelong identity for Chinedu and Osita and I am really grateful to
God for being associated with their rise to stardom” said the soft spoken
director who has done many other movies including Peace Offering, a cross
cultural production between Nollywood and Cameroons, Mosquito, and Shericoco…the
movie that made Funke Akindele a big star in the east of Nigeria amongst
numerous others.
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