I Have Headaches About Paying Back The Loan For My
Film – Okediran
By Toyin Akinosho- June 3, 2018
Months after finishing the shoot of
the movie adaptation of Tenants of the House, his fictional account of
intrigues and greed in the National Assembly, the novelist Wale Okediran is
scratching his head how to find the money to pay back the Bank of Industry.
Monthly
repayments of the 50Million loan are due from September 2018, when the one year
moratorium ends. The film, currently in post-production, is unlikely to be in
cinemas before July and Okediran, a medical doctor and serial novelist turned
politician, who wrote the novel from his experiences as a member of House of
Representatives in the Obasanjo years, is scratching his head.
“I
used my house in Abuja as collateral, and there’s not a lot of money coming
from anywhere else,” the former President of the Association of Nigerian
Authors confides, on the side-line of a recent conference of the International
Publishers Association in Lagos.
But
should Okediran be so worried?
To
go by the movie credits, he shouldn’t. The screen play, which turned the
political thriller into a romantic story centred around an affair between a
Fulani beauty and a Christian politician from Kaduna State, was written by the
widely respected Tunde Babalola (October 1, The CEO, Last Flight to Abuja,
Maami, etc).
The
movie features the stunning Ghanaian actress Joselyn Dumas and was directed by
Kunle Afolayan, who is himself a phenomenal marketing machine. Okediran
is impressed by Afolayan’s creative energy. “He made the film a big deal”, he
says, recalling his two week experience on location.
“We
shot an elaborate Fulani wedding, in a real Fulani village in Kwara State. We
staged the sharo (the traditional Fulani flogging contest). The village head
welcomed us openly, the entire village, a large population of several
thousands, turned up.”
If
the film would be released under the auspices of Afolayan’s Golden Effects
Pictures, then expect some slick attempt to de-risk the investment through
product advertising and corporate alliances.
There
have been insinuations, in places, about proposing to government to use the
film as an instrument in mediating the religious conflicts raging in Northern
Nigeria and to intervene in the darkening reputation of the Fulani Herdsman,
but Okediran waves aside the proposition.
“I
am wary of involving the film in politics,” he explains, but the door to that
opportunity is not entirely closed, especially as the producer searches
everywhere to pay back the loan.
Okediran
favours, for now, showing the film to corporates, for exhibitions in town hall
meetings, for after hour entertainment and special screenings, even on company
premises. “If you know anyone in Shell or Chevron or MTN, please forward their
numbers to me,” he said.. Those are the options, as the work continues toward
release between July and August.
It’s
not clear, at this stage, what the commercial arrangement is between the
Okediran, the Executive Producer and Afolayan, the director. But a solution to
Okediran’s headaches lies in the two of them having a robust conversation about
how to deliver the product.
https://independent.ng/i-have-headaches-about-paying-back-the-loan-for-my-film-okediran/
