Interview with Victor Okhai, Queen Amina [2]

About Queen Amina project

Queen Amina is a project I am passionate about. The idea did not just drop from nowhere. I have to give credit to a lady from the American Embassy, (the United States Department of State). This idea came when the woman challenged us during a workshop. She said that there is so much to do in this country, and that why don't we pick from the good subjects we have and make good films out of them. And then it struck me that of all the subjects around, Queen Amina is one project that I can take anywhere. Now why do I want to do Queen Amina? There are so many intriguing things about the personality of the queen. Queen Amina was a woman who lived in the 17th century in a predominantly Islamic society. She became not just a queen but also a warrior and conquered states all the way from Zaria down to River Niger. That was not all. There were a lot of odds against her. She was a woman and from an Islamic background. She never got married. Wherever she went to, she would take a man for the night, sleep with him and by morning, she would execute him so that the man would not go and run off his mouth.

My interest in the subject

What I seek to reveal in this movie is Queen Amina's motivation. What kept her going from Zaria all the way through? What was she looking for? Why was she killing all those men? For a woman to be so powerful and influential at that age and time, not in this age when we talk about woman liberation, there must have been something about her. That is what I want to explore in the film. I am not just going to shoot Queen Amina but I intend to clinch Nigeria's first foreign Oscar Award through the project. I know the rules of the Oscar, rules 2 and 14. I am working strictly by those rules. I would shoot Queen Amina in Hausa language. I am in a position to do this because I can read and write Hausa language. I also understand and respect the culture. I will remain faithful and true to what the language represents. Most importantly, filmmakers in the north have embraced me on the project. I have discussed with someone like Sanu Uwazu, the president of MOPAN. He has given me his full assurance.

Budget and artistes

It's an expensive project. My budget is about N300 million, about S2.5 million, which is really nothing. It has to be done well. We are raising funds on our own but we shall contact some institutions for support. Even after producing the film, we intend to market and exhibit it in all major film festivals in order to create necessary awareness before the Oscar. That would take a lot of money as well. These institutions would see that it is something they should contribute to as part of their corporate social responsibility. But whether or not they do it, we are focused on this project. I once spoke to the Managing Director of the Nigeria Film Corporation, Mr. Afolabi Adesanya about it and he has assured that he would support us.

Winning the Oscar Award

We have done this before. Last year, the International Film and Broadcasting Academy, took part in the biggest film festival in Europe and Germany with a short film called Chill Pill, by one of my students. We did not come home empty handed; we won a prize. We set our target, made it and returned with victory. Queen Alima is another project that we have made up our minds to realise. We are abiding by all the rules and are dealing with strategic planning. Our target is the award for the Best Foreign Language Picture in the Oscars.

Interview with Victor Okhai, Queen Amina

Victor Okhai, popular filmmaker and scholar is founder and director of the International Film and Broadcast Academy, Lagos. The academy is acclaimed Nigeria's first private film school. Okhai has been a major consultant and commentator on Nigeria's motion picture industry otherwise known as Nollywood. He has presented many papers at different for a as well as served as resource person to a number of workshops and seminars on film both locally and abroad.

Recently, Okhai presented a background survey on Nollywood at a discourse presided over by Mr Horst Kohler, President of the Federal Republic of Germany who visited Nigeria. Kohler was a guest of Goethe Institut, Lagos to which Okhai is a consultant. He spoke to Daily Sun on his career and passion for film as well as his pet project Queen Amina.

How I established the academy

It started in 1996 but it was officially registered in 1997. Basically, we are into training. We are official trainers for organizations like AIT, Minaj and a few other television stations in Nigeria. I have been doing this for years now, locally and internationally. Not only that, I have been a very strong voice for propagating all that Nollywood stands for at various international fora. Basically, a lot of people come from all over the world to join Nollywood but I have been here from the beginning. And I'm able to talk from an intellectual and practitioner's standpoint. Generally, even though I deliver papers talking about Nollywood, I have also been a resource person for organizations like the BBC. For instance, locally, I've been a resource person on script writing for UNICEF. We did a programme recently here in Jos and Lagos. The United States Department of States in conjunction with scriptwriters just held two workshops in Jos and Lagos. We also had a visiting Professor from New York, his name is Miller Churchill. I was one of the resource persons as well. This is something I do all the time. I've been teaching with the National Film Institute and I've been a resource person for many years now.

Nollywood and the way forward

The state Nollywood is in right now is like a seed of corn dropped into the ground that may rise again. It doesn't mean that it is dead but it has been celebrated and has come to a stage where it must transit to another level but it must shed off its present skin to move to the next level. That's what you are seeing right now. There are a lot of films but people are not buying like they used to. The initial impression of Nollywood is wearing out. The viewers are more informed right now and are more democratic. This is because they have a choice to decide what is good for them. This means that every producer has to meet audience's expectation in terms of packaging and contents so that he or she would be able to compete in this growing market. The era of putting just anything in the market is now over. Now we are moving into a whole new realm, which would be bigger than where we are coming from. But the people that will take over the new realm are probably not the people in the industry today. They would come from the film schools, the music-video producers. That is the direction we are headed. Music videos are now experimenting. Usually, that is where all the new art forms in film and video are tried out and after they are perfected, they can then be deployed into actual filmmaking.

So these groups of youngsters making music videos right now, a lot of them have learnt the art on the Internet and some others have gone to music schools abroad and locally. Very soon they will come in as directors, cinematographers and editors. They will take this industry to a whole new level. The groups of people we have right now keep on doing the same things over and over again. They have mastered bad habits but technology has brought new challenges, the industry becomes even more advanced. Unless people are willing to change, they would be left behind. So I see a new and brighter future. Our musical videos are competing favourably abroad. We are doing very well on MTV and that's what is going to be happening very soon with our movie industry.

What makes a good film

It could be subjective but there are also objective criteria. Film, basically, should entertain the audience. In terms of content, a good movie, in the case of a feature movie, should be able to grab the audience's attention from the beginning, sustain its interest all through the movie and satisfy the audience at the end of the picture. In terms of content, technically, it must be pleasing to the eyes and must work within codes that the viewer is used to and can accept. Even if barriers and conventions are broken, it must be in such a way that the viewer is willing to accept. That is why film is usually described as the medium in which the audience willingly suspends disbelief and when the audience does this, the filmmaker has achieved his aim.