Anakle Films, in conjunction with the US Mission, Nigeria, has released a short film titled Fishbone. The message of the film was to tackle piracy and counterfeiting in all shapes and forms.
The informative short film, Editi Effiong’s directorial debut, stars Shaffy Bello, Daniel Etim Effiong, and Moshood Fatai. Shaffy Bello plays the criminal boss Mama T whose drug counterfeiting business comes full circle; killing her granddaughter.
The story is based on and gets its title from an Ibibio proverb; “a witch does not kill her own grandchild. Their rib will get stuck in her throat like a fishbone“.
After the 28-minute runtime, actor Banky W, producer Zulu Oyibo, director Chinaza Onuzo, and other industry professionals and government officials spoke on the menace of piracy.
Drawing a parallel between drug counterfeiters and pirates, Banky W said, “…drug counterfeiters, unfortunately, would kill someone pretty much instantly. Pirates are killing a whole generation of creators slowly.”
Chinaza Onuzo talked about falling victim to piracy on a big project. Onuzo said, “Our first brush with pirates happened on Wedding Party 1. One of the things we found out about a week after the film came out was that there was a production copy that was floating around via Google Drives.”
Moses Babatope, DMG of FilmOne Group, revealed that piracy cost the makers of Wedding Party an estimated $6 million!
Mohammed Babandede, DCG of Nigerian Customs Service explained that the vast population and poverty ratio of Nigeria made it an easy target to sell cheaper, substandard, and stolen goods to people.
They launched into educating the audience about intellectual property rights; as well as adverse repercussions to combat all forms of piracy and counterfeiting.
