Who defines quality? - Amaka Igwe
By Modupe Ogunbayo, Newswatchngr.com
Published: February 7, 2007
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Nollywood Has Changed It was some minutes past eight o' clock on a Sunday night sometimes in the mid 80s. In late Isaac Ene's household, Amaka Igwe, was engrossed in an episode of Mirror in the Sun, a popular drama programme then. In the midst of it, she got a brainwave. She conceived the idea of writing a script about an all-conquering heroine like the legendary Queen Amina in a stage format.

Later, armed with a B.Sc in Education/Religion from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile Ife, and then M.Sc in Archival and Information Science from the Anambra University of Technology, now Enugu State University of Technology, Igwe actualised her dream. But now, the stage format script had metamorphosed into a full fledged soap dwelling on issues such as male chauvinism, polygamy, secret cultism, the Osu caste system and so on. Years after the soap was rested, it still evokes feelings of nostalgia among movie lovers.

A former lecturer at the Anambra State University of Technology, Igwe consequently produced many home video classics, including Rattle Snake 1&2, Violated, Forever, Apostle Kasali and so on. She also produced The Barber's Wisdom for M-Net, a cable television network and many others.

Amaka Igwe pix by Mildred Okwo

Married to Charles Igwe with children, she presides over Amaka Igwe Studios. Her interview with Modupe Ogunbayo, principal staff writer, is obviously a confirmation of why her late father used to call her General Officer Commanding, GOC, Excerpts:

Newswatch: Best of the Best, BOB, 2006 television theme was The Next level. Now, BOB 2007's theme is Building Bridges what does this mean?

Igwe: Nigerians films are being watched all over the world, in the whole of Africa, the Americas and in Europe. So, an increasing number of people are watching Nigerian films. People are even doing studies on Nollywood now. So, what we have decided to do now is to be a bridge between Nollywood and the rest of the world. Especially the established films making areas like Bollywood and Hollywood. Now, we are trying to bring in three directors from Bollywood, Hollywood and Nollywood for them to showcase themselves. They would also be in a question-and-answer session so that people will see the similarities and differences between them, trace their history, see how they got started and where they have been. That is basically what we need. Apart from this, there is a need to address some issues. For instance, people say we should shoot on digital video and make it celluloid, on 35ml and we are trying hard to bridge the gap between digital video and celluloid also.

We are also bridging the gap between the academia and the industry practitioners, people who are practising now, because people think that the Nigeria home video has very little academic input or intellectual things. So, we are doing what we called The Africa Cinema Colloquim to bridge that gap. We are bringing intellectuals, professors of films to hold a colloquim with people who are practising films to bridge that gap. We are also bridging the generation gap between the people who are making films before and people who are making films now and the young people who are upcoming. We are also conducting the university challenge, where students from Nigerian universities would compete for the Raymond Dokpesi prize. Last year, it was won by Ahmadu Bello University and University of Calabar. They both shared the one million Naira cash prize. This year we are going to do the same thing, but the prize money would jot be shared, one university must be the winner. There would not be a joint winner according to what the minister of Information and Communication said. So, with that, it is all-encompassing. It is about everybody, coming to see the cooperation between the Nigerian motion pictures industry and the rest of the world, that is what we are doing.

Newswatch: African Movie Academy Awards, AMAA, has been involved in organising award ceremonies for some time now. What is the collaboration between you and AMAA?

Igwe: All of us work hand in hand. Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima is my sister and colleague. I am on the international Board of Trustees for AMAA and part of the jury. We all work together. When we host AMAA we bring in international delegates who leave immediately. But sometimes they bring those who have already come to our event so we want to now do it in such a way that immediately after AMAA, the international delegates who are invited and other guests would travel down to Abuja for BOB-TV 2007. Because what happened most of the time is that when AMAA hosts a meeting, we bring in international delegate or sometimes they bring in new ones or the ones that have come before. So, we want to do it in such a way immediately after AMAA everybody moves from Bayelsa on Sunday to Abuja.

Newswatch: Nollywood is said to be the third largest after Hollywood, the American film industry and Bollywood, the Indian film industry, based on quantity rather than quality. Is this true?

Igwe: It is real. In terms of quantity and this is documented internationally, we make a lot of movies and there is nothing wrong with that. Before, it is like not all the movies that are made that are bad and it is not all the movies that are made that are good; it is exactly the same way in India and in America. It is not every American film that is good and it is not every Indian film that is good, so in Nigeria it is the same thing. The only problem with Nigeria is that people have decided that the whole movies being produced are bad. The difference is that because they are being made in Nigeria, people see most of them, whereas what we see from America are the good ones. The one that are popular come to Nigeria and we see. But out of every 100 American films only one will be good. It is the same thing everywhere in the world, everything cannot be good. But in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, people like the films we make, they excuse the quality, quote and unquote. Who defines quality? I can render the history of how so many of the techniques in film making have been developed and were developed overtime. In Nigeria who says the technique we develop is not really good, it does not have to meet their standards, but it meets our own standard and the people are watching it, no matter how bad they are and it is speaking to people.

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