How we are sanitizing Kannywood – Baba Karami

Your face has been scarce on the screen these days. Where has Baba Karami been?Well, things are not as they used to be. I am now the AFMAN national president and you know what that entails. I am now saddled with more responsibilities and commitments that have to do with the industry’s development than before. […]

Your face has been scarce on the screen these days. Where has Baba Karami been?
Well, things are not as they used to be. I am now the AFMAN national president and you know what that entails. I am now saddled with more responsibilities and commitments that have to do with the industry’s development than before. I am optimistic that the public can attest to the fact that since the inception of AFMAN as a regulatory body in Kannywood in Nigeria we have succeeded in transforming the Hausa movie industry to one of the most popular, fast developing and highly respected movie industry.
In AFMAN we have gradually and tactfully sensitized our members to understand what we stand to gain as an association. We have also succeeded in making registration compulsory to all film makers be it actors, scriptwriters, directors and or any other guild so as to protect and safeguard the industry. Actually, as a leader, I have very many issues to tackle in the industry which has made it very difficult to fully concentrate on appearing on screen. However, that does not mean I have quit the screen; in fact I am presently producing a wheel spinning movie that has to do with the Northern traditional institution.

What would you say the association has achieved so far?
We have indeed achieved a lot. Actually I can say the formation of this association was out of necessity. We have realized that due to the way people in the industry are perceived negatively, we have therefore, gone so far to harp on the issue of indiscipline, immorality and improper conduct among actors. It was clear that from inception, the association promised to be fair and just to anybody regardless of his/her stand in Kannywood when it comes to sanctions and punishment and reward or motivational aspects.
Similarly, as leaders of the association we have for the first time in the industry’s history, succeeded in initiating a health insurance scheme for the industry. It was a brilliant initiative and we pledge that all our members and by extension, the whole film community in Kannywood will come under the scheme. We had a meeting with the Nigerian Entertainment Industry Lecture Series (NEILS) some times last year and it was indeed a gathering of Kannywood’s most influential and prominent entertainment practitioners in Kano  to herald the eventual roll out of the scheme from the northern region of the country.
It is also no longer a secret that our association has in one time or the other suspended some of our members, some for gross misconduct while others were suspended for breach of the association’s rules. These are some of the measures taken by the association in sanitizing it and also in restoring its good image in the society and I believe you can attest to the fact that we have come up with a very positive attempt that has within the last few years uplifted the industry’s standard in the world.

You made mention of producing a movie based on traditional institution. Tell us something about this movie?
We are presently on a location for the movie which is one of my best works so far. The whole idea was conceived when it became apparent that as leaders in the Hausa movie industry, we need to do something that will assist the industry in giving it a sense of direction towards promoting our rich cultural heritage that defined us as an entity as against the kind of movies that we have been producing recently; Kannywood ought to be custodian of Northern culture.
I personally went back to my company Karami Multimedia and sat down with my director, script writers and all other personalities that matter. That was how we came up with this story of ‘Sarki Abdallah’ which literary means King Abdallah.
It is a story built on the intrigues usually happening in kingdoms in a typical Hausa setting of the Northern part of Nigeria. We have to intensify research on the history of such kingdoms and also engage the help of those that have been part of the traditional institutions for accuracy and perfect reflection.
However, in this movie we have attempted to purely use local materials that some of the Hausas have already forgotten due to their contact with the modern world. We have used items like Akushi, Alkuki, Ragaya, Tandu among others in the movie and also the costumes used were that of the ancient Hausa setting. We have tried to backdate the movie but due to some constrains we settled to make it a reflection of a kingdom not very long ago and you can see that in the costumes we used, but we have done all what we could to make it look like a real traditional monarchical setting.

What have you done different in this movie?
We have done a lot of things differently in this movie, one of which is using upcoming artistes as most of the major characters in the movie. We have also carefully selected the prominent artistes we have used in the sense that majority of these artistes have at one time or the other had contacts with the custodian traditional institution’s setting for efficiency in replication. We have a cast including Mudassiru Haladu, Aisha Dan Kano, Mustapha Musty, Baba Karami, Sadiq Sani Sadiq among others in this movie.
And also this movie has one of the biggest takeoff budget in Kannywood because we have so far committed over N5million into it and that is not all we still have some other miscellaneous commitment to be made as I have said earlier it was an initial takeoff budget.