Nollywood actor popular for his appearance in numerous Yoruba movies, Ayo Badmus has reacted to claims that there is no unity among actors in the Nigerian movie industry.
The actor who spoke to Sunday Scoop explained that as human beings, there will always be conflict and no industry is completely in unity.
He said “I don’t think there is any industry that is 100 per cent united. So far it is human beings, there will always be conflicts . However, I believe it is stupid to classify some Nigerian movies as English films. That is another area where we are missing it. They are Nigerian films, period. You can only call them English – speaking movies.”
The actor also said the industry does not need monetary support from the government but an enabling environment and help with subsidy on some of the things they use in shooting movies
“We started this industry with no support from anybody. We put resources (sourced from family and friends) together and started doing what we could until we got to where we are today. Till now , no bank or financial institution can support us because they don’t understand out industry. Meanwhile, individuals cannot fund major projects on their own.
In other climes (such as America, India and Europe ) where they do proper films, the project is done by a studio and that is why they spend billions of dollars. But over here, we still do it on our own and that’s why we do mostly low – budget movies, though we’ re still trying with the little resources we have.
Right now, we need to attract these big studios to come to Nigeria. I believe we don’t need government funding to grow the industry. It is usually the wrong people who pose as filmmakers and collect money from the government. They then use the money to build houses and buy cars, without shooting any movies. We just need the government to create an enabling environment, and help with subsidy on some of the things we use in shooting movies. That is when we would be able to shoot proper films.”
