SANI DANJA CALLS FOR RESTRUCTURING OF NIGERIAN MOVIE INDUSTRY
Sani Danja, a Nigeria artiste, on Monday in Abuja, called for the restructuring of the movie industry to enable film makers to recover their investment and make profit.
Danja, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said if restructured, the movie industry in the country would be able to generate revenue for stakeholders.
He said the industry had the capacity to become the best in the world.
“You cannot just be producing movies and at the end of the day you will be living like a church rat.
“So many of our film-markers, our producers, our actors and actress are not even making anything from the movie.
“So I think the government should come in and restructure the money-making aspect. Let it be something that at the end of the day if you produce just one movie, you are okay for that year.
“We learnt that people from the U.S., people from the Bollywood, were paid more than 20, 30 million per movie, so when will that start in the country.
“Now we are rated number three. Even though it is in terms of production or in terms of quantity, it does not really matter.
“As far as you are number three in anything, you are number three, and I think we need to be number one, and how do we do that? We have to copy, we have to get resource persons.”
Danja urged the Federal Government to include veteran film makers in its decision-making process.
He said that the method of distribution of movies in the country was a major source of concern to film makers.
He said: “we don’t want films produced in Nigeria to sell only in Nigeria or in our neighbouring countries. No!
“Just the way every movie produced in the U.S. is sold worldwide, we want movies produced in Nigeria to be sold in every part of the world.
“The movies should be advertised everywhere and they should be seen and viewed worldwide. That is where the government should come in because we have already made this industry without the help of anybody.
“Now is the time for the government to come in and lend support.”
He also urged the government to intensify effort at curbing piracy in the industry. (NAN)
