‘How collaboration can help Nollywood after COVID-19’

VETERAN filmmaker, Mathew Simpa, has said that collaborations among producers will hasten the creative industry’s recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic is defeated.

“Collaboration is the way to go after Covid-19 crisis,” explained Simpa. “It will be unwise for individuals to bear the brunt of movie production single-handedly. Sharing the burden will result in improved quality and ability to compete on the global scene,” he added.

The filmmaker, active on the scene since the 1980s, was speaking on the recovery of the creative industry after the disruptions caused by the disease.

The Head of Ben Auto Entertainment disclosed that talks were ongoing with some Nollywood producers in Lagos, Asaba and Port Harcourt to embark on collaborations immediately COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed in the country.

“With Ben Auto Entertainment, I finally get the opportunity to take my dream to the apogee of my career,” said Simpa. “Ben Auto has been in business for decades with its tentacles in the automobile sales business, event and hospitality, music, education and so on.”

Simpa explained that his expertise combined with experience and business savviness of Managing Director, Prince Ben Ukadike are enough to energise sustainable collaborations that “will result in yet another revolution in the movie/video production sector.”

In his over 30 years of filmmaking, Simpa has always been at the forefront of changes. After his exploits with Meshfilms Ltd in producing celluloid films on reversal film stocks in the mid-1980s to early 1990s, he joined the evangelical home movies train in 1995. He helped create a growing evangelical film making sector.

In 2014, he produced ‘Outside the Box’, another revolutionary Christian movie that is still widely acclaimed six years later.

In March this year, he joined newly created Ben Auto Entertainment as head of the film production department.

Ben Auto Entertainment recently acquired state of the art video production equipment. The company’s primary goal now is to partner with interested movie/video producers for joint productions.

Simpa, whose credits in film productions include several titles in pre-digital era studied cinematography at Nigerian College of Film Technology, Owo Ondo State, in 1984.

He was the Assistant Director of ‘Jagunlabi’, a celluloid film produced by visual arts critic, Tajudeen Sowole and directed by Sunday Ossai with Yemi Meshioye as lead actor in 1988.

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