Veteran actor and producer, Emeka Ossai is one of those who has seen it all in Nollywood. Having been there from the very beginning. Starting as an actor, he at some point took off to explore production, he speaks to eelive.ng in this interview with DAMILARE FAMUYIWA, on why trailing foreign themes and style will always limit Nollywood.
eelive.ng: Have modern mainstream actors outshined the old actors?
No, in actual fact if you have been watching closely, you will see that some of my colleagues who were just strictly actors unlike like me who went into production aspect of movie making, have been called back.
There is no doubt that there was a desire of a shift from the old actors to the modern ones, because many people were thinking they have the new vibe, which will enrich whatever project they were billed for. But surprisingly, the watching public were always demanding for the old actors. As a matter of fact, I had stopped acting when I was called to do Clinic Matters, and some series I did with Africa Magic.
So, I can say I was called out of retirement into acting again, because they discovered that after they have used the new actors, the audience are not connecting with them, there was no connection or whatsoever. Thus, they sent for people like me, and that was how we found our way back into acting.
I really won’t say any of us is going into extinction; everyone who is available, who still has his or her skills and strength to work, have all been brought back. It is only those who have probably left for other things that find it difficult to come back, or those who have travelled abroad. Even in the United States, there are Nollywood branches, and people are beginning to make films with them.
eelive.ng: Why did we have so much fuzz about the quality of production in the early days?
Yes, there was a time we were having issue of low production quality, but today, the productions of today are of high quality.
We use the same quality of cameras and audio equipment, just like our foreign counterpart. The only issue I have with modern actors is the way they sound in movies; they are always trying to sound like the Americans.
The truth is you cannot make a film to beat the American way of doing their own films. What we need to do is to go back to what we were doing as Nigerian filmmakers, using the very essence of the African way of life to project our films to people.
NETFLIX came in of recent, and what they want is Nigerian films, not the one that they speak phonetics. We cannot be better than the Americans in their own way of making films. For example, look at African Magic channel, the one they show epic films, the movies shown on the channel are of typical African productions; and if you put them online, most of the people who watch them are not even Nigerians, you will be surprised Arabians are watching and the Caribbeans , and even the Americans. Why? They just want to see Africa in its essence. We can never make a film that looks like theirs better than them.
eelive.ng: What is your take on lingering copyright challenge with filmmakers in Nigeria?
The best we can do is agitate and try to get the government to act. We have made efforts and they have promised us that something will be done on the issue of copyright affecting actors in Nigeria.
Recently, I was in an interactive session with the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, where he was addressing some of these things.
On the internet, you must have seen some of these things, which one of it is ensuring that 70% aired contents on TV must be Nigerian production. These things are of high importance, they might look little to you as a member of the public, but these are things that will enrich the industry and at the same time transform lives.
In other countries, it is difficult for us to sell ourselves to them because they have successfully restricted foreign inputs in what they allow. They also want to sell themselves to their people, which is not the case in Nigeria, so now the minister was saying that it must be 70% local contents on TV stations, and they are going to ensure that it is implemented, which is very good.
