‘Blame society for Indian culture in our movies’

Weekend Magazine: Tell us about your first stint in filmmaking? Sani Muazu: Filmmaking was never a deliberate attempt for me in the first place; I grew naturally into it. It all started as far back as when I was in secondary school. During holidays we as students would stroll to the NTA Jos, which used […]

Weekend Magazine: Tell us about your first stint in filmmaking?
Sani Muazu: Filmmaking was never a deliberate attempt for me in the first place; I grew naturally into it. It all started as far back as when I was in secondary school. During holidays we as students would stroll to the NTA Jos, which used to be known as NTV in those days which all we needed to do was to be part of a youth or an entertainment programme. It was a natural inclination that when I left secondary school before proceeding to the university, I already had my own programme that I was presenting on television for the NTA Jos. By the time the Plateau Radio/Television (RTV) was established, I was appointed as a staff in 1982. I was a reporter/newscaster and then I had to go back to school then, to the Institute of Journalism before I proceeded to the University of Jos, but even at that I was a staff with either one television or the other.  It was in 1986 that I realized what I really wanted in life was to be involved with either television or film. In 1985 a foreign troop came to Nigeria to shoot a movie concerning South Africa’s apartheid crisis, the title of the film was ‘Soweto’. I had a chance to act in Soweto and I also had a chance to see closely firsthand how films were being made, then I realized I had no business being in the newsroom, reporting or casting news. All I needed was get training on making films. From 1989 to 1990 when I was a student in the University of Jos,   another opportunity came for another movie ‘Mr. Johnson’ to be made and I was part of it.   In 1990, there was another milestone in my life; I took a decision that I would not work with any government organization anymore. And the end of ‘Mr. Johnson’, I joined Mr. Macdave and we formed the first independent film production company in this part of Nigeria, Epitomy Productions. By 1992, I had  had enough working under Mr. Macdave and I took a decision that I wanted to be on my own. I had just gotten married then too. So between 1992 and till date, I have been an independent producer of film, feature films, documentary, jingles and all kinds of things.
Along the line I discovered I was getting old into production of developmental films that contributed to the benefit of the society. That way I found myself working with some non-governmental organizations, some of which includes UNICEF, DFID, BBC World Trust, UNFPA and for all kinds of developmental agencies.
Would it be right to say growing up in Jos sort of helped shaped your filmmaking career choice?
 You are very right, because Jos is the cradle of filmmaking in Nigeria; I say this without fear of contradiction. As far back as 1926, the first film to be produced by the colonial masters was done in Jos and the title of the film was ‘Palava’. That shows that even before Nigerians started making films, some people had started. ‘Palava’ was a colonial film, but all the actors were Nigerians. Jos for sure had a great deal of influence on my career choice.
Not many people know about the movie ‘Palava’, is there any hope it could be recreated to fit into today’s society?
No, simply because I think we have out-grown the colonial experience and mentality. I think we are more original now, because we want to tell our own story our own way. What I would say about some other films that were done in Jos, like the ‘Cock Craw at Dawn’, which was a major television series that was done in Jos that I wasn’t part of.
Immediately after ‘Cock Craw at Dawn’, ‘Behind the Clouds’ came and I featured in it. Between ‘Behind the Clouds’, ‘Supple Blues’, ‘Shadows’, ‘Riddles’ and ‘Hopes’, I had done so much from the Jos stable. I had been a constant decimal in the Jos film production center. What I would tell you about Jos  is that there is no place in Nigeria where creativity comes with the environment. That you get in Jos because asides the naturally endowed scenery, the breath taking views of Jos will and can aspire any creative person. Even the cosmopolitan nature of the environment of different cultures is something else. I personally think the water also had its effects too. So yes Jos had a very positive impact on me and my career.
You have come a long way, from the days of ‘Cock Craw at Dawn’ till date. What in your view aren’t we doing right to get the sort of impact films had back then in the society?
Let’s start with the fact that there is a huge generational gap between then and now. The values that we had in the early 80s towards late 80s was valued based on our passion for wanting to do something creative as a person. As a person, we all want to excel which transmits down the ladder. Producers, actors/actresses and all those involved with film production do feel that way. Back then it was not about commercializing creativity, it was about the passion to do it. Mark you, people who worked on ‘Cock Craw at Dawn’, ‘Behind the Clouds’ and the other series back then were people who went to school. They studied Theater, Drama, Television or Mass Communication; they were not just people who gate-crashed because someone had made money out of it.
Now, you can’t compare with what is happening right now. Now I must also say what is happening is also positive in a way, because there is nothing that is defining the country to be in a positive light like hat we have in Nollywood, Kannywood or any of the woods. It is great, but it is also greatly bedeviled that one can’t tell a story without a message, that you can’t show diabolical things unless you want to get rid of it from the society. Those films are presentations to invigorate the society, but not everyone thinks this way, because once someone does a film called ‘Calabash’, everyone wants to do the same thing to make quick money. So really I would say the value that defines who we are as professionals is not present anymore. However, there are still people like us who are still standing on their feet to put things back on track.
What can the movie industry do to promote unity in diversity?
I would want to disagree with you that some movies would propagate ethnic bias. The reason is simple, I do not think there is any veritable tool as it is right now that is promoting unity like the film industry, probably because we have regulatory agencies like the video censors board. People try not to promote disunity among Nigerians in their films. We have a lot of films where we have patriotism and national unity being promoted; we hardly see this in other aspects of life.
The level of tribalism we have in the country hasn’t really transcended into the film industry, but we also contribute our own share to disunity. For instance, why should we have different film industries like the Hausa, Yoruba and English film industry? These are the kinds of things we should not encourage, we should have a united umbrella for all which will show that we have trust and confidence in each other and the themes we show in our films should be able to reflect those values to Nigerians as nationalists.
But then let me make something clear especially now that I have said all these, the history of Nigeria is one of the major things we cannot run away from. It is very true that we have different nations which come together to form a single nation. But then the leadership has not yet succeeded in putting their hands on the right angle to make every Nigerian see themselves as one , which will translate down the ladder where we will have people trying to do the same thing. However, I wish to say that the film industry strictly has a role to play here; a great role if I may say. The film industry can portray this country in a better light, promote national unity. We did a film production in the 90s called ‘Amina’, and it brought actors like Olu Jacobs who acted as the chief in Igbo land; Pete Edochie was brought to the North to act as the Emir in the North. We all acted in ‘Amina’ and it was a cross over between the north and the south and we tried to bring Nigerian actors/actresses from different nationalities to show that we are one as a nation. So, it is possible to see an Igbo girl playing the role of a Hausa girl in the north and the Hausa playing the role of an Igbo girl in the north or south. All that happened in the movie ‘Amina’, but shortly after that, we hardly see stories like that.
Let me bring in the government, there is never a place in the world where you have a film industry with government presence or support for the industry or without their involvement in what is happening in the industry. In America, their movies promote ‘Americaness’ more than any other thing even the foreign policy of the country is reflected in their films, but coming back home we are not doing anything close to that. Right now we have a government that is trying to promote film with their recent monetary intervention, but we don’t have a national organization trying to promote themes that promote national unity into films. I think it is high time that the government shows interest in promoting certain national values through films.
Regarding what you just said concerning the government showing more interest in films, how much do you think the Nigerian film industry can contribute to Nigerian economy?
Definitely they it can contribute a lot to the economy. In other countries, their national income or GDP is majorly gotten from entertainment activities. Today the colossal waste that Nigeria is wasting cannot be quantified if we look at the number of films that are in different countries but the film makers are not getting return on investment, because Nigeria is not utilizing its bilateral ties to ensure that any film copy that goes anywhere should have returns   to the Nigeria and the creator. That is to say if we are not deep fitted into oil and we can look at the content generated for films and television, we can make our economic growth to be faster, but it calls for the development of a clear distribution or execution system.
Nigeria seems to be one of the highest producers of films, but lowest in terms of quality. Is it a Nigerian thing or a case of anyone going into film production?
Let’s start from the beginning, the foundation that was used to grow the film industry in Nigeria started   on a wrong foundation. That is why we have lots of movies, but very few can stand where quality is required. Second, technology didn’t help us, if we are talking about the first 25 movie producing nation of the world, you will not find any of them producing on video; they are likely to be all nations producing on celluloid. Celluloid is very expensive. People producing films on video are not considered to be producing quality films. That we are the first largest   is   positive, because no matter the benchmark Nigerians are telling their stories and people are understanding Nigeria better and our cultures are being sold. So we are doing well, however, what we need to do as a nation is to ensure that we have a regulatory agency to define who a film maker is, so that quacks and gate crashers would not have an entry point in the industry. An agency like that could have developed a national bench mark and standard. Most American movies hardly show here because they have fallen short of the basic entries. It is the good ones that we see, we can do the same if put the necessary and basic things in place.
Talking Kannywood, we still have a situation where sound effect and subtitling is still a mess, and  most of them go outside Nigeria. Do you think Kannywood can do   address this?
I agree with you and I get very embarrassed when I see these and especially something as simple as sub title being done the wrong way especially when the whole world is watching. A lot needs to be done, but there is a limit to what one person can do. I blame to a large extent the African Magic for allowing such bad subtitling and production on their channel. I remember when Hamida was the head of Content Production, they would not take just anything but today they are accepting any movie and airing it. As a responsible satellite channel, it should be able to   control   whatever they show.
Sadiq Daba once castigated Kannywood for promoting Indian culture their movies. How do you respond to that?
It is never the culture of the north to have people dancing and singing around flowers. It surely portrays the Indian culture. In my view the entire society is guilty for that. How comes in the 80s and 90s the NTA stations concentrated on showing Indian films to its viewers? Hadn’t we responsible broadcast administrators back then, didn’t they think that what they were showing was affecting the youths then? If they had showed only Nigerian dramas, the youths wouldn’t have grown up trying to copy the Indian culture. So the failure was from the society. It is a collective guilt that we must bear as Hausa people, we   all contributed in bringing a foreign culture which is now overriding our space, defining us in a negative way and as copy cats, which is unfortunate. So I would say training remains a solution to this problem. If people had gone to school to study they would not do this.