Poor fundIng, reason Nollywood can’t go global — Genevieve Nnaji

No one has yet described very openly the malaise afflicting  the Nigerian movie industry popularly known as Nollywood as Genevieve Nnaji did recently.

The screen goddess,  who appeared on CNN as a guest of Richard Quest during the week to discuss the acquisition of her first directorial debut movie, Lion Heart, by Netflix, told the world that Nollywood’s poor funding system is preventing the industry from reaching global acceptance in spite of churning out more movies than Hollywood.

Speaking about the funding of her film, Lion Heart, she revealed to the world what has been  the norm of funding a movie production in Nigeria.

“For money,” she explained, “we have to self-fund unfortunately, we don’t have adequate funding for movies that we actually intend to go global, there isn’t that provision yet.”

In 2014, under the  debasing project conducted by the country’s statistics agency, the Nigerian film industry was said to have accounted for more than 1.4 per cent of the GDP about $7.2b of Nigeria’s economy with an estimated employment strength of 1m people.

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Lion Heart won the heart of America’s top streaming company because according to Genevieve Nnaji, of quality and the authenticity of the story.

“It provided me with an environment where I could showcase the things that make me proud of our culture and our talents and our values.

“ It was really about the authenticity. The story speaks for itself, plus you know we focus on the quality this time.”

On the eve of the premiere of Genevieve’s Nnaji’s directiorial debut film, ‘Lion Heart’ at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, movie sharing platform Netflix announced a deal to acquire the movie on its channel.

This makes ‘Lion Heart’ the first film from Nigeria to be owned by the American movie streaming platform.

Apart from being funny, the film thematises gender roles very strongly. Featuring veterans such as Pete Edochie, Nkem Owoh, Kanayo O Kanayo, Genevieve Nnaji, LionHeart is about the troubles women face in male-dominated arenas.