My top 5 movies of 2015(Nigerian)

This is in no particular order and it is strictly a matter of opinion. So please, don’t send me hate mails if you thought your film was the best and it didn’t make my list. We can differ, no?  It could also mean that I didn’t see your film. 

 

1. Falling.

Yes, sue me. I’m starting with my own movie. After all, awarding bodies give their films awards so why can’t I award mine. Hehehe. I enjoyed writing Falling and was very delighted when Niyi Akinmolayan, the director called after reading it to say, he loved it too.  It’s been one of the few times that I’ve enjoyed watching the first cut of my movie. Usually, I’m like, what is this? Is this the one that would send me back to the village? But fortunately, I’ve been lucky so far and Lagos is still accommodating me even though it threatens to throw me out every day. I thought the acting was great. There really is something about Adesua Etomi.  And Kofi Adjorlolo cracked  us all up.  Unfortunately I don’t think Nigerians loved Falling as much as we did because why didn’t we make 50 million naira in the cinemas eh? Y’all just love us on only on twitter.

2. Taxi Driver.

 

I already wrote a review of this movie so there’s not much more to say but I enjoyed watching it. I met Odunlade at  the last AMAA awards in SA, he was so cool.  This is one of the major highlights of these events; connecting with people. His performance in Taxi driver was completely effortless. I look forward to working with the director and cinematographer of the film.  I really believe Taxi driver would have been one of  our best films if the script had gone through a few more drafts. We didn’t quite get the story and I believe, neither did they.

3. While You Slept.

This one starred Ini Edo and Veneta Akpofure.  It might be the best performance I’ve seen of Ini Edo yet. It got her an AMAA nomination and deservedly so. Veneta also did great but seemed to disappear off the movie scene, right after that. We look forward to her return.

4. Out Of Luck.

Don’t ask me why but I was afraid I wouldn’t like Out Of Luck but I was proved completely wrong. It had great moments and I enjoyed the experience. It’s the first time I have actually really taken a serious look at Wole Ojo.  He held his own well. Linda Ejiofor blew me away with all the pidgin and Femi Branch is now one of my favourite actors.  I also think Niyi Johnson may be the break out comedian this year , he was very enjoyable to watch.  Big ups to the set designer as well, it was a very practical and beautiful set. The fusion between the rich and the poor was very well done. It showed our Lagos, as it really is. You know, island and mainland things.

5. The Visit

Ah, this one. Brilliant. But it had an unnecessary but. It was unnecessarily long. Take an hour out of that movie and we would have been talking about it in years to come, maybe even use it to teach writing students. This is the problem when you believe your own hype, because you think your film is great, you think everyone must feel the same way making you not as  concerned about your audience as you should be. I don’t understand why anyone would want to make a 2 and a half hour long drama when it’s not an Indian film.  Production value was also unnecessarily low, we could have done with better sound, better locations and better cinematography. That said, The Visit was a highly enjoyable movie, had so many moments and the actors were on point. I must particularly give credit to the screen writer and director/producer of the movie. It started with the brilliant script and the director and producer put a brilliant team together who delivered.

 

If I had the guts of  my friend, Chris Ihidero, I’d also do my bottom 5 but I can just imagine how that would go. People would probably threaten that I’d never find work in this industry again and that village trip that I’ve been avoiding may just happen.

Black is beautiful. Bleached is...?

Black and Proud

Dark and Lovely

Black is beautiful

Despite these popular phrases, it seems though that yellow/white is the preferred colour.  What I’ve never been sure of is if this preference is real or imagined.  Do men actually prefer light skinned women or light skinned women think they do? I know men bleach, in fact the number seems to be growing, all you need do is watch a certain TV station and you’ll see loads of them but for the purpose of this post, we’ll concentrate on women. Women in Nollywood actually. Why are women in Nollywood bleaching? Does the camera really prefer lighter skinned women or is it the men behind the camera who do? Technically, my friend who is a cinematographer insists that the camera prefers lighter skinned people. Perhaps. Considering that yellow or white(up to you) is a brighter colour but do the audience really care? In the grand scheme of things, does skin colour help or deter you from achieving stardom in Nollywood?

Let’s think about it for a bit. How many light skinned top rated actresses do we really have? Let’s work with the earlier generation Nollywood.

 

There’s Omotola Ekeinde

Rita Dominic

Tonto Dike

Ngozi Ezeonu

Monalisa Chinda

Rachel Oniga

Eucharia Anunobi

Ngozi Nwosu

Stella Damasus.

 

 Now let’s think about the dark ones. There’s Genevieve Nnaji

Ini Edo

Mercy Johnson

Patience Ozorkwo

Uche Jombo

Nse Ikpe Etim

Dakore Akande

Funke Akindele

Liz Benson

Chika Ike

Kate Henshaw

Stephanie Okereke

Chioma Akpotha

 

It looks to me like the darks have it. This is my argument each time I meet young bleached actresses who insist they did it to stand a better chance in the industry. Lie. You did it for yourself. You bleached because you wanted to bleach.

Maybe light skinned is more attractive, maybe some producers/directors will cast you because you’re light skinned and you’ll pop out on the screen but you cannot sustain a career based on that.

Without the accompanying skills and talent, as one of the marketers likes to say, you'll be headed back to the village.

 

P.S This is an inconclusive list, feel free to add your own names.

Oko Ashewo

This blogging thing is hard. It’s so much easier to tweet. How hard can 160 characters be? But blogging, you have to think and think and think and think except of course, you’re stealing other people’s works. This is not a shade o. 

Since there are so many Nollywood movies these days, I’ll talk about some every now and then. Mostly the ones I like.

So I watched Taxi driver aka Oko Ashewo. By the way, do you people know that at some point Nigeria banned churches from registering two names?  Living Bright Church aka God Will Do Great Things Ministries, Do Not Walk Alone Salvation Army aka Devil Is A Liar ministries. The pastor who told me this said the Government had to intervene before they run out of names. Imagine wanting to start a church and all the names have been taken? You’ll now have to register Bring Your Offerings Here Church or something like that.  But I digress.

Yes, Oko Ashewo.  My initial reaction was what am I doing here? This is a Yoruba film and it was subtitled in pidgin. Pidgin! Who subtitles in Pidgin? Who even reads pidgin? But I got over my initial shock or anger or whatever it was I was I was feeling and settled down to enjoy the film. I read the pidgin subtitles and picked up whatever Yoruba words I could.  I’ve told you people before that I love Yoruba people.

I don’t know if I can tell you exactly why I liked Taxi driver but I did. Perhaps, I was jazzed, you know you Yoruba people like jazz, at least that’s what your films make us believe ( I’m kidding o, don’t be so sensitive, elections are over), I’m not sure what the story of the film really was but it had enough moments and left a good taste in my mouth.

I particularly liked the feel of the film, the cinematography was beautiful but I wished that the film had given us more because it could easily have.  For a film about Lagos night life, we didn’t really see a lot of this life. The streets were practically empty all the time apart from some secret things going on that even the audience weren’t privy to. It also had a rather slow beginning.

The actors did a good job even though I felt Ijeoma Agu was underutilised. She’s capable of so much more than was given to her. And dear Femi Jacobs, you know I’m a fan but your next film choice is very important. If you continue to play these type characters then you’re going to be type cast. Except you’re going to own the type cast and just be the new Tony Umez( who remembers Tony Umez washing I think Liz Benson’s underwear?) if you don’t want that, be careful what role you play next.

Driving home after the film, I started to like the idea of subtitling in pidgin, it was arrogant and I find arrogance sexy, you know like this is how I want to do it, take it or leave it. 

A year or two ago, Nollywood  set up an Oscar qualifying body or something like that. Unlike Nigeria that sets up an award, then proceeds to give more than half the awards to other African countries, Oyibo is not like that.  All you people from all other countries, you’ll be competing under the foreign language film category and your film must be predominantly non-English.  I feel  Taxi Driver could have stood a chance to represent Nigeria  if it’d put in a bit more effort and if its script had gone through a few more drafts what with its dusty feel and predominant use of Yoruba and Pidgin language but alas.

I’d recommend Taxi Driver and commend Daniel Oriahi. He’s definitely a director to watch out for.

When Love Stops Happening

Last month, a friend told me about her failing marriage. Ten years, two kids and just like that; it’s over.  They are no longer compatible, her husband says.

I've been trying to wrap my head round this since. Trying to understand this thing they call love.  What does it really mean? How does it happen and how does it stop happening? How does love go from I’ll love you always and forever to I’m sorry there’s someone else. I need to get this.  Is it something the other person does, or just time, or chance, or life?

There are a million books about how to find and keep the right man or woman but who offers advice on how to get over a heartbreak.  My friend said she felt worthless, like she was no longer a woman.  

How bad was she that he would walk out, not just on her but their children. She was sure it was  something she’d done.  So she begged him, promised to change, to be exactly as she wanted her to be, anything at all to stop him from leaving.  But the same way you feel you can’t live without someone when you first fall in love, is probably the same way you want desperately to live without them when you’re out of love.

My friend’s husband has always been responsible and hasn't changed. He’s promised to keep paying their rent, school fees and more but what she wants the most, she’s lost to another woman.  He’d always been a faithful husband, if he ever cheated , he was very discreet . She had absolutely no cause to be suspicious till three months ago when he dropped the bombshell. He was leaving her and yes, there was someone else.

My friend is very beautiful and very good natured, she wouldn't last too long if she put herself back on the shelf but this has completely shaken her throwing her into depression. She’s forcing herself to be strong for the kids.  The last thing on her mind is another man.  I’m not sure I can be with anyone else, she says. 

‘I never stopped trying, never. I wasn't a bad wife Uduak or was I?’ I tell her she wasn't. She was someone I envied. She cooked, she cleaned, she kept her shape.  The tendency is often to blame oneself when a partner walks away but shouldn't the primary blame go to the one who couldn't keep promises?

When someone says I love you, what does it really mean? Is it just for the moment? A gamble? Is there a way to make someone stay in love with you forever? Or is forever just an illusion?

When feminists became mass murderers.

I’ve wanted to write about feminism for the longest time but each time I start, it goes on a direction I’d rather it didn’t so I’m forced to stop.  Yesterday however, Emem Isong invited me to a workshop by Champions for Change on sexual and reproductive health supported by Ford Foundation. Champions For Change is partnering with Nollywood to make advocacy films towards improved reproductive , maternal, new born, and child health(RMNCH).

Some of the data put forward reminded me about Adichie’s speech; We should all be feminists.  

According to UNFPA, about 800,000 women are said to be living with Vestico Vagina fistula(VVF). This really upset me. VVF is a totally avoidable condition. It is often caused by Childbirth; when a prolonged labour presses the unborn child tightly against the pelvis, cutting off blood flow to the vesicovaginal wall.  Many girls in the North of Nigeria become mothers between the ages of 11 and 15.  They experience obstructed labour and some unskilled attendants cut through the vagina to create passage for the baby, often resulting in VVF; a condition that leaves the girls constantly leaking urine and faeces. Only 10% of these girls get treated.

Here’s what shocks me. A forty year old man marries a 12 year old child, gets her pregnant, she suffers VVF, loses the child, he abandons her, marries another 12 year old who may just suffer the same fate and the entire nation watches with folded arms. 1n 2015? In a civilized society or is Nigeria not a civilised society?

This is why we fight for gender equality, if the girl child is considered an equal to the boy child, we’ll not have half of the problems we have today. The idea that the girl exists solely to provide pleasure for the man either in the bedroom or kitchen is completely flawed and must be rethought. A girl has full rights; to education, to freedom, to choice, to privacy etc. Why does the society deny her these rights?

To reduce feminism to a refusal to cook, as is most often seen on twitter, is silly and mischievous. There are young girls dying because a culture sees them as a little higher than animals, created solely for the man’s pleasure and not for their own desires.

The man is not better than the woman. The woman is not better than the man. Both exist to compliment and not destroy each other.  Both genders have destinies to fulfill and should be assisted by the society to achieve their full potential.

When next you’re attacking feminist for fighting for the rights of the girl child, remember that 800,000 girls are leaking urine and faeces constantly and that this could have been totally prevented. Remember as well that there will be 12,000 new cases this year and the year after and the year after until you and I do something.

PS. For more information about Champions for Change, please visit www.championingchange.org

100 days of Power Supply

My friends say I’m a self hater. They are right. Some of the choices I make are quite mind boggling. Like shouldn’t I be kissing APC’s cheeks, hoping to get some political appointment, or contract but I’m here, still insisting that PMB must do more than use body language to run the country.

I had promised myself not to discuss politics here. My blog is for laughter and encouragement but just this once, let me break the rule.

We’re making a fool of ourselves with this constant rush to defend even the president’s cough.  A few days ago, I saw on Twitter, someone boasting about how through social media, they brought change to the country. What change? Is it not rather early to shout Uhuru?  What major landmark has the president achieved in 100 days? Which of his promises or the promises APC made has been fulfilled? Why are we lowering the bar just because we want to be right?

Okay, he’s declared his assets, that is if you accept that as an asset declaration, but is that an achievement? I’m seeing APC fans jumping for joy, mocking the president’s critics, because he has declared his assets?  Really?

Electricity has greatly improved, at least in some areas, but can this be attributed to the current Government? No one seems to really know. Someone said it was due to his body language. Yesterday I read a report that said Buhari’s orders to operators was the reason for improved power supply, another said there’s been no pipeline vandalism since Buhari came to power.  If this Government is going to claim power improvement, it’d be nice to tell us exactly what’s responsible and how the President made it happen, apart from body language of course, and the plans to sustain it.

APC has been shouting down contrary opinions since 1901. People called me names because I raised questions about Buhari and APC and now they say I’m bitter because I continue to raise questions. We don’t have many rights as Nigerians but at least we have the right to ask questions. It should be our collective responsibility to question our leaders irrespective of their political platform. Language already separates us, and culture, and class, we mustn't let political parties join the list. In my opinion, APC should lose the APC twitter handle, and simply tweet as the Federal Government. Almost every time I read a tweet from that handle, I cringe. You’d think there’s a different country called APC.

We can’t be quiet about Aregbeshola’s inability or refusal to pay salaries but scream with the loudest voices at Fayose because he allegedly asked civil servants to kneel down. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot with this selective criticism. And it will come back to haunt us.

One of the reasons I believe GEJ’s Government didn't perform as well as it should have was psychophants, people patting him on the back when they should have chastised him.  We’re doing the same thing to President Buhari. We wanted change, it can only be achieved if we hold our leaders to their words, not defend them when they break it.

I did not support Buhari during the elections  but I have no qualms about  being wrong. I will personally bake the humble pie and eat it with relish.  For if Nigeria truly changes,  all our lives will change with it. 

Mark makes a mark with Hotels.ng

Mark Essien is CEO and founder of Hotels.ng; one of the fastest growing start ups in Nigeria. He recently raised a 1 million dollar investment for his company. In an interview with him, he tells us about the challenges, breakthroughs and the vision for Hotels.ng.

On why he set up his company, Mark says money was never the motivation. He wanted to create something and watch it flourish.  ‘I wanted to build things more than I wanted to be an entrepreneur.’

Mark worked for a few years before he got into university. Those years laid the foundation for what he would eventually become. ‘When I got into university, I supported myself throughout by selling software.’

Hotels.ng is not Essien’s first project. I've tried many things and failed many times, I know it’s such a clichéd statement, but if at first you don’t succeed, you try again.’ Mark kept at it till Hotels.ng was birthed. Each failed project was a learning path that eventually led me to where I am today, he says.

‘We started out with research; what was missing in the technology space, and how big was the market? ‘ I believe that the market mostly drives businesses. The online hotel segment was not being addressed so I thought I can fill this space and I did.’

Mark started out in Calabar but has since relocated to Lagos where he says there’s a bigger pool of talent, investors and other tech entrepreneurs whom you can learn from.  His first investor- spark.ng- was based in Lagos and it was important to be close to them. ‘Spark.ng has made a big difference to us and has been one of the key drivers of our success.’

Unlike most Nigerian entrpreneurs, Mark is not reluctant to talk about failure. Buttering his earlier statement, he reinstates that each of his previously failed project contributed to the knowledge he now has which has allowed him to make something successful. ‘ Even with hotels.ng, it was tough at the beginning. I spent the first year just finding lists of hotels online. It took really long before it slowly started picking up. Most businesses are birthed in the minds of founders for a long time before they slowly become a reality.’

For advice, Mark has this to say to young entrepreneurs:  ‘I think that whatever one does, one must do something that challenges and forces one to learn about a lot of things. Building a business requires a broad range of information, and the more you know, the better prepared you will be for the things that will come your way.’

With 250 million naira safely deposited in the bank, Essien is ecstatic. ‘Now we know that for the next two years we can focus on growing the business without worrying about fluctuations in income. We’ve worked really hard but we also got lucky, we met someone who knew someone, who knew someone who was looking to invest in Nigeria. Introductions were made, due process followed- a lengthy one- our business fundamentals were examined before we eventually reached a deal.’  

Essien plans to go international soon but isn't willing to say much about that yet.

Seeing that humans are obsessed with relationships, and maybe rightfully so. I had to ask Essien if there’s a  woman somewhere in the picture or if I could take home the good News to the ladies in waiting.

‘ I am not married but in a serious relationship, so the line is already filled up :-)’ This is his answer.  Sorry ladies, better luck next time. 

PS. Mark grew up in Ikot Ekpene. I told you there's something great about us small town folks. Hehehehe.