‘It didn’t make sense to ban my film’
Weekend Magazine: How did you get into film making? Ishaya Bako: I got into film by watching blockbusters. I grew up watching movies, the regular blockbusters like ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Silence of the Lamb,’ ‘A Few Good Men.’ I watched ‘The Simpsons’ a lot too. And I loved the idea that if I was going to […]
Weekend Magazine: How did you get into film making?
Ishaya Bako: I got into film by watching blockbusters. I grew up watching movies, the regular blockbusters like ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Silence of the Lamb,’ ‘A Few Good Men.’ I watched ‘The Simpsons’ a lot too. And I loved the idea that if I was going to school, I would imagine that some superhero was following me. Obviously growing up in Naija in the ‘90s, there is no way you think of making movies. I never thought about it as a profession. I thought of being a doctor. I even thought of being a traffic warden. I studied MIS [Management Information System] at Covenant University; I was also part of the drama group. I think that was where the first expression of writing came in. I started writing first and then progressed from there. When I was travelling to Port Harcourt with the drama group, I had an accident. I knew I wasn’t going to die, but it shook me and made me realise if I died, I should at least have done the things I love doing. I knew I didn’t want to write for stage, I wanted to write for the screen, perhaps because of my love for computers. So after the accident I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker. It took a year to convince my parents but they have always been supportive. So I was able to go to the London Film School and did a master’s programme and since I graduated in 2010 I have been making both fiction and non-fiction films.
WM: How many films would you say you have made?
Bako: I have made over a dozen short films, two documentaries and a feature film, ‘Road to Yesterday.’
WM: Why didn’t you take the short cut and just jump into Nollywood like so many others have done?
Bako: I believe everybody has his path in life and there is no short cut to anything. I knew this was what I wanted, it was film or burst and I would be lying to myself if I just moved from my training in MIS and started writing for screen and directing when I knew nothing about films or even been on a film set until I decided it was what I really wanted to do. Even though I know a lot of people have done things that way, I knew that wasn’t my path and thankfully I have people that are supportive. What I learnt in those two and half years will remain with me for the rest of my life. I learnt film on film and it is very rare to find schools teaching this now.
WM: You are doing mostly art house movies. Why didn’t you go into the typical Nollywood films, the commercially viable ones?
Bako: I don’t think there is anything typical in anyone’s journey in Nollywood. Everyone had his journey and motivations and directions. Some people’s motivation is to make money and some people’s motivation is to tell stories. I think that was my motivation as well but at the same time I am a very socially conscious person and I to see the irony of the issues we find ourselves in, especially in Nigeria. It is very important to put a mirror to society by the films or whatever expressions that you make. That was what motivated my interest to start with. I am still very interested in telling the story as I did in ‘Road to Yesterday,’ I am still interested in talking about gender-based violence as I did in ‘Silent Tears,’ which is a documentary, or corruption, as I did with ‘Fuelling Poverty’ and I think primarily, whatever scene hits me deep down, it should be the truth, because if I am going to spend nine months, a year, two years of my life doing one thing, it should have some meaning on several levels. My company, Amateur Heads, is turning out socially conscious films because if we take on the responsibility of telling stories or making films, then that responsibility should manifest in the products that we are making.
WM: Having done short films and now having done a feature film, is this a stage in your transition . . .?
Bako: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean the main reason why I haven’t done any feature film up until now is resources, and this means time and money. This is the first feature film I made and it is a transition. There is a kind of transition you make and say ok, let’s push on from here and make long form films. I enjoy short films, I enjoy making them but at the same time, the reach short films have is not as much as that of feature films. And most of the time, there is also that kind of cost benefit you have to do because raising the funds to make a feature film will take a lot longer than for a short film.
WM: So how did you raise the funds for ‘Road to Yesterday’?
Bako: ‘Road to Yesterday’ was produced by Genevieve Nnaji and her partner. They started their production company and at that time we were working together on a TV series and negotiations on that took too long. She had the idea of the story and told it to me, about this couple going on a road trip and things are not well with them, and there are twists and turns, just as there are in a road journey. It was interesting for me and I offered to write the script and I did and she accepted.
WM: Are you satisfied with the movie you have made out of it?
Bako: I can’t say I am satisfied with any of the works I have done yet because I still feel I am still discovering how much I can do with the media and my skills and talents and I think each of the projects I have embarked on have their own strengths and at the same time they have had their weaknesses. I can’t say I appreciate the fact that we have been able to complete the film and there is a coherent core. But since I have reviewed it, there were weaknesses with both the execution and design. I will not deny that I am proud of the work I am doing but to say satisfied? Far from it. Definitely my best work is yet to come.
WM: Any other feature film in the works?
Bako: At the moment we are developing two things. We are developing a TV series, which has been shelved for the time being for complex reasons. Now we are developing a feature length documentary, a positive story now because the other documentaries I have done, ‘Fuelling Poverty,’ the fuel subsidy scam and the second one I did, ‘Silent Tears,’ are very dark and gloomy. So I am looking forward to doing a happy story. I am doing a story about Nigeria, from a really positive angle. And then we are looking forward to adapting a novel because I don’t think we have enough adaptations. Ever since Chimamanda’s ‘Purple’s Hibiscus,’ Helon Habila’s ‘Waiting for an Angel,’ Seffi Atta’s ‘Everything Good Will Come,’ which was almost a decade ago, all that literature that came out from that point in time till now, the Nigerian literature space is opening and blossoming, and because of how collaborative the film is, I don’t think we have even started to tap into these resources of literature. At least, for the next few years, that is our plan, to adapt two novels into feature films. We have not started appreciating the literature we have and adapting it will help. Because I think we have a problem with writing stories for the screen and adapting novels will help close that gap. And the novels that are coming out are really, really good.
WM: Writers have been accused of being aloof to the film industry by not making their works available for adaptions; do you think that is the case?
Bako: No, I don’t think that is the case. I think it shouldn’t come from the writers to want their novels to be adapted. It should be the other way round, the desire should come from the filmmaker and that is what we want to do in the next few years because if you take an example with [Uzodinma] Iweala’s book, ‘Beast of No Nation,’ he didn’t approach the filmmaker to say this is my book, I want you to adapt it. Rather, the filmmaker was at the airport, saw the book, bought it and read it over the flight and said this is what I want to work on. A great story is a great story, no matter how you look at it. Hollywood and Bollywood are more open to literature than we have been here. So it shouldn’t come from the authors but the filmmakers. And the authors too should be open to filmmakers because I remember approaching an author once, I won’t mention her name, and I said I wanted to adapt her book because I enjoyed it very much. She was very pompous when she replied me. The attitude I got. I think the writer’s job is to write a good book and then to be open to collaboration with filmmakers.
WM: Your documentary, ‘Fuelling Poverty’ was banned by the Goodluck Jonathan administration. How did that make you feel?
Bako: I don’t want to use the word disappointing, but it was … disappointing. It didn’t make sense. That was the first thing. It didn’t make sense. But then again it was consistent with the message we were trying to put across. In a country with a scam in the oil industry which is the life blood of your country. It didn’t make sense and it still doesn’t make sense, the level of corruption in the sector. While on one hand it made sense for the government to ban the film, it didn’t make sense to ban a film that is more or less a collection of newspaper headlines and TV headlines with a narration on it. But if you look at it, nothing makes sense in the country.