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Thursday, May 1, 2014

Romance Meets Life

Romance Meets Life

#BringbackourGirls - Masses Turn Out For Protests, Boko Haram Negotiator Emerges

Posted: 01 May 2014 01:49 PM PDT


Hundreds of Nigerians protested in Abuja, Ibadan, Kaduna, Lagos and Kano over the schoolgirls abducted from Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, more than two weeks ago. The protesters in Abuja demanded at the National Assembly that the federal government provide concrete news in 24 hours concerning the fate of the girls or the protests would continue.


Defying the heavy rain, the protesters commenced the march from the Unity Fountain, near the Transcorp Hilton Hotel and were led by the former Vice-President of the World Bank, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili.

Others who joined the march included the wife of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Titi; wife of the former Chief Justice of the Federation, Mrs. Maryam Uwais; renowned civil rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), civil society activists; professionals; youth groups; and students.

Upon reaching the National Assembly complex, they were met at the entrance by Senate President David Mark, who addressed the rally, saying the lawmakers were also angry at the situation and were working round the clock with the security agencies to ensure that the girls are rescued.

Meanwhile, a negotiator has emerged who thinks he would be able to broker the release of the abducted girls from Boko Haram. The intermediary told Channel 4 News.

"The girls, we believe, are alive but they have been moved from the location to which they were originally taken. It would not be hard to engineer a deal. It looks like they want to release them. They want a way out," said the negotiator, who has long experience of dealing directly with the Islamist group Boko Haram in previous hostage crises.

The kidnappers have warned, however, that attempts by the military to launch a rescue attempt "may result in the deaths of many of the captives".

The Oscars Academy Approves a Nigerian Selection Committee

Posted: 01 May 2014 12:46 PM PDT


The Oscar awarding body - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has approved a Nigerian committee - the Nigerian Oscars Selection Committee (NOSC) - to select and submit to it movies to be considered for the Oscars. The 12 members of the committee are well known Nollywood stakeholders, as follows;


1. Chineze Anyaene – Producer/Director (Chairperson)
2. Ramsey Nouah – Actor
3. Charles Novia – Writer/Producer/Director
4. Ngozi Okafor – Line Producer/Producer
5. Emeka Mba - Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC)
6. Chioma Ude - Executive Director of African International Film Festival (AFRIFF)
7. Akin Salami - Executive Producer/Distributor & Content Developer
8. Kene Mkparu – MD/CEO, Filmhouse Cinemas Nigeria
9. Mildred Okwo – Producer/Director
10. Biola Alabi – Managing Director, M-Net Africa
11. Olumide Amure - Managing Director of Bloomberg Television Africa Limited
12. Shaibu Husseini – Culture/Film Journalist/Film Critic

Every year, countries with an approved selection committee may submit one film for consideration for the Foreign Language Film Award. According to rules by the Academy, members will consider submissions on 7 criteria which are – story, direction, acting, cinematography, sound, music and universal theme.

The outstanding Nollywood movie selected each year will compete with movies from 85 other countries for the coveted Oscar. Of the 85 movies, 5 are shortlisted for Academy members to cast their votes and choose a winning foreign language production.

I've not seen an English language movie submitted for the Foreign language category, so this means our directors and producers aiming for this have to start seeking scripts in local Nigerian languages. Interesting days are coming. I don't think we're ready for 2015 Oscars, maybe the next year after that.


_____

H/T - BN

Jada Pinkett Smith and Lisa Price Speak Out For Carol's Daughter

Posted: 01 May 2014 09:42 AM PDT


Jada Pinkett Smith today shared a couple of pictures of her natural hair on her Facebook page in support of Carol's Daughter, a hair company for African American woman. The company has had some bad press recently starting with a bankruptcy filing, but they are in no way folding up, just restructuring. Named for the founder's mother, Carol's Daughter is a line of beauty products designed by Lisa Price. Their range include products for hair, skin, and hands, as well as fragrances.


Along with her pictures, Jada also wrote,

"I know you all often see my hair in various ways, but what you see in these pics is MY natural hair. I've taken care of this mane with CAROL'S DAUGHTER products for over 15 years, specifically…Lisa's Hair Elixir. With that said, Carol's Daughter is still going strong, despite some misleading press, so much so you can now find it in Target, on HSN, Ulta and Sephora inside JCPenny. My hair would like to say thank you to Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter for making products that actually nourish the scalp and hair;)"

Lisa Price, the company's owner, equally posted some pictures and information on her Facebook:

Lisa Price

A Review of An African City Web Series

Posted: 01 May 2014 08:03 AM PDT


by Adelarin Awotedu

I was bored last week trying to prepare a business plan for a feature film I am working on so I decided to find what the latest online buzz is. Been wondering for a couple of weeks what 'an African city' is all about. I give it to their public relations team, an African city is on every influential blog online.

I watched nine of the episodes of the hit web series whilst laughing my head off, I am sure my neighbors were wondering what I was up to.

Over a course of weeks, an African city has received coverage even on CNN African voices, called the African Sex and the City by BBC. I really hate that tag, just like I hate the fact that Mo Abudu is being referred to as Africa's Oprah and not Africa's Mo.

 Back to the Matter at hand, The fashion is simply incredible, showing the world how contemporary African prints have become. I particularly enjoyed how each character's individuality was made to shine, almost every African girl can been seen in at least one of the characters, from the short and stout, tall and lanky, natural hair, permed hair, dreadlocks etc.

The African dump episode is my favorite, sent me to stitches, how does one announce, 'I wanna take a dump'

In total for acting, believability, accent, style, dialogue and comedy I give it an A+. it brings to light several issues which we avoid to talk about because of our culture.
But my main issue with an African city is why almost all the episodes are about men and the lavish lifestyle.
This web series fails the Bechdel test completely.

What is now known as the Bechdel test was introduced in Alison Bechdel's comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. In a 1985 strip titled "The Rule",an unnamed female character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
It has to have at least two women in it,
who talk to each other,
about something besides a man
Why do we always focus entirely on negativity in women?  It's not balanced. Women are often painted as sex crazed human beings but we forget that the men are also culprits. What happens to the men? Where are the male stories?

Basically the message being communicated is what I don't get.

I will like to see an african city through the eyes of an average African woman, not returnee spoilt brats with fake accents. I will love to see strong african women grow and break the norm in a male dominated society and inspire other women. We need to be proud of our heritage and try not to attach being independent to having random sex with several men.

An African city definitely has these women who are the main characters in the same named web series but they are definitely in a minority.

Either we like it or not, in the process of entertainment, content producers play an important role in giving people an idea of how to live and act, what type of life to live but I am sorry I will hate to have my relatives act like sex crazed females.

I hope the series continues because its entertainment value is on the high and sincerely hope none of these girls catch dreadful disease which at the end is the stereotype which the creator is trying to avoid.


Adelarin Awotedu

Amaka Igwe Lives - Charles Novia Writes Touching Tribute to Late Film Producer

Posted: 01 May 2014 12:03 AM PDT


Amaka Igwe lives. The tears we shed for her are futile. She lives. The shock we express over her passing on is carthatic. She lives. Amaka Igwe did not die. She just built her loving 'house of commotion' in our hearts. Commotion with co-relation; commotion with emotions.


The brilliant lady who could unarguably be credited as the progenitor of Nollywood as we know it today still lives. Immortalised in our hearts. If there was no 'Checkmate', that superb soap opera which had a chart-topping five year run on national television, there would have been no Nollywood. For the tested and trusted actors from 'Checkmate' were mostly cast in the trend-setting 'Living in Bondage'. Amaka had groomed a new generation of Nigerian actors through 'Checkmate', she had prepared our minds for something explosive with her creation. There is yet to emerge a soap opera since then which has all the thrills and frills and popular appeal like 'Checkmate'. Forget all these tin imitations. Amaka's soap was solid steel. Unbreakable. Unbeatable. And you say she is dead? But Amaka lives!

She created characters which blew our minds. Anne Harthrope, Segun Kadiri, Chief Fuji, Peaceful Peace, Alika, Akpan, Barry Hughes, Nduka, Bennie etc. She held the nation spell-bound for five years every Thursday 8pm on the network service and gave people gossip points for the next week before the next episode. 'Checkmate' was her creation.'Checkmate' was her success. She brilliantly wrote all the epsodes, over 500 of them and produced carefully. She was far ahead of her time. The most intriguing thing about her concerning 'Checkmate' was that she knew when to pull the plugs. She broke our hearts by resolving the plots and finishing the soap opera on one Thursday evening in 1995. The country was shocked and mourned. But Amaka was done with the soap. She had checkmated our expectations to see the soap opera run forever. She just knew when to stop. And that last episode of 'Checkmate'? The best ending I have ever seen in Nigeria for any serial and come to think of it anywhere in the world. It was so brilliant. Amaka ended the plots and sub-plots and showed us all why the serial was titled 'Checkmate'. Anne Harthrope (played by Ego Boyo who was replaced by someone else for a few months while she was on 'maternity leave') married Segun Kadiri ( played by RMD who gave the character a brilliant interpretation with a raspy voice and finger-on-the-cheek affectation) and just as we all sighed that at last the two enemies had fallen in love and tied the knots, Amaka gave us a twist. Anne cleverly 'divorced' Segun Kadiri, warning him that she only married him to give her baby a father but that she would never sell or hand over her company to him! The last scene ended with a stupefied Kadiri laughing in shock, knowing he had been 'checkmated'. So classic.  And that was not all. She brilliantly had the cast talk to the viewers before the end credits in scripted lines about how the soap opera made its run. That episode was so good and popular that NTA Network had a re-run of it the next week.

On the set of 'Violated' in 1996 ( her post-'Checkmate' opus in which I was cast as Jide, the banker) she told me how agonising it was to write that final episode. 'I was pregnant then and I would write and discard. I can't count how many scripts of that final episode I wrote and tore. The denouement just was not clicking. Then, finally I got the muse. And I just kept scribbling on my bed. When I finished I was so happy and screamed out to Charles (her husband) 'Honey, I got it!' and we both screamed and hugged ourselves!' That piece of information stuck on my mind.

But Amaka is not dead. With enduring works such as 'Violated' (which re-defined and triggered the romantic drama genre in Nollywood) 'Rattlesnake', 'To live again', 'Forever' and 'Fuji House of Commotion' , how could she be dead? This lady who has been the subject of various dissertations and academic theses changed our creative landscape.

Her contributions to the creative industry cannot be quantified. She was an advocate for professionalism. She was a stickler for excellence. A cerebral contributor to Nollywood's trudge of progress. She wanted what was best for the industry. She was behind the founding of the Movie Practitioners Council of Nigeria bill (MOPICON) which has been gathering dust at the National Assembly for years. That bill is supposed to be to Nollywood what NBA is to the Lawyers and NMA to the Doctors. Amaka wanted this bill passed. Could our fractured Nollywood please unite to ensure that this is done if only to honour and immortalise her?

Thank God she got a National Honour from President Jonathan a couple of years back. An MFR. A well-deserved national honour for an Amazon of Nollywood. She believed in young talents and had an open door policy for any talent who came to her office. She had an academy too, where young and ambitious filmmakers were trained.

What about her film and television bi-ennial festival in Abuja; Best of the Best (BOB) TV? Or her radio station, Top FM?  Or her painstaking contributions to the committee set up to give guidelines for the 3 billion naira grant given to Nollywood by the President? She fought tirelessly for the industry to maximally benefit from the grant.

And with all these achievements, you say Amaka Igwe is dead? No, she lives. Her footprints on the sands of achievement on the beaches of our creative economy are there for all to see. Too large to fill.
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