Africa in Pictures
A sneak peak behind the scenes of Nollywood.
Commentary
Discussing cellphone filmmaking in Africa
Tutorial
Character development with Oladipo Agboluaje
Jozi Kings rules!
Justice Umeh speaks on his new film, Jozi Kings.
With Emeka Mba
Director of NFVCB speaks on regulation.
Spotlight Uganda
Kamya on her award wining film, Imani.
Jenna Bass speaks on The Tunnel
A film on the massacre of Matabeleland.
> Screenshot from The Figurine
> The Figurine movie poster
> Behind the scenes of The Figurine
The Figurine is the latest film by the new Nigerian director Kunle Afolayan, nominated in 10 categories at the 2010 African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA); the film has enjoyed rave reviews at local and international festivals as well as from critics and films buffs.
African Screens, Chinaka Iwunze speaks to the Director/Producer/Actor, Kunle Afolayan, about his films and the journey from a banker to acclaimed Nigerian filmmaker.
How did the story of ‘The Figurine’ come about?
I worked on The Figurine for over five years, and I was a banker at the time I had started. But then after I decided to leave banking behind and pursue a career in filmmaking, I finalised the script for The Figurine and came up to London.
When I arrived, I met up with a friend, Kemi, who had studied at the London Film School and she took a look at the script. I remember telling her at the time that it was going to be a thriller and she giggled saying; “But it’s funny, not thriller”. And so I had to look at the whole script again, but with Kemi this time (Laugh).
While I did this, I started up with Irapada and when I saw it as a success, I decided to take up The Figurine again. At the time though, it was called The Shrine. I actually had four different versions of the script and it took about another 9 months to finalise it.
How long did it take to shoot the film? And how did you go about funding it?
It took 3 months to shoot the films. One month in Lagos, One month in Osun State and the other month was scattered around the other locations we shot the film in. It took longer than expected due to some financial obstacles but we pulled through.
The Figurine cost a quarter of a million pounds to produce, which meant I needed to draw in capital from different sources. And so some of the money came from corporate organisation sponsorship requiring me to do some Product Placements in the film.
It is important to be subtle when dealing with this marketing technique, as it is very unprofessional when the product placement is obvious in the film.
I also got a loan from the bank and well the rest was my life’s savings.
Your film has not only been received well in Nigeria but also internationally. What is your response to this?
This is the best thing that can happen to any film as it only puts you as the filmmaker out there on the agenda. Also it allows for more and better opportunities to get the film distributed the right and safe way.
Furthermore, the next time you want to do another film, a successful film can act as a calling card, and this, I hope will make way to more sponsorship and funding.
Where have you screened The Figurine?
Well a lot of places. To mention a few; The London African Film Festival, New York African Film Festival, Tokyo African Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival.
[Kunle Afolayan will be attending Festivals throughout this year, as The Figurine will be screened all over in Europe, America, Asia and Africa]
Can you share some of your marketing strategy with African Screens?
Well firstly, having a good and trustworthy distribution method is very important and this is where events like Festivals come in handy. This is because you meet a lot of sales and distribution agents in the festivals.
Also it was important to reach out to the audience and one good way was through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. While the film was in production, we would post up photographs of scenes and the locations on the group page set up for The Figurine.
> NEXT PAGE
>Director/Actor Kunle Afolayan and co-actor Ramsey Nouah in The Figurine
Interview by Chinaka Iwunze
Kunle Afolayan takes us deeper into his latest film, The Figurine
