Mr. Peddie Okao, Chief Executive Officer of Prolens Movies Ltd, is a prolific movie producer and actor whose undying passion for the advancement of quality films in Edo dialect clearly underscores excellence in professionalism as demonstrated in the quality of film productions from his stable.
In this interview with Ken Abu and Daniel Edobor of The NIGERIAN OBSERVER, the film producer who abandoned the allures of the banking profession to satisfy his life -long passion in cinematography speaks endearingly on the success story of the Edo Movie industry and many more. Excerpt:
Edo State at 19, how has the movie industry in the state fared?
First of all, permit me to say happy birthday to the Edo people, happy birthday to the gallant people who fought for the creation of the state and it is a wonderful experience and a beautiful stride.
Today we celebrate 19, that is 19 years of absolute loyalty to our existence, for the movie industry, we have come to this point with 19 glorious attributes which we have picked up on the way. I beg to say that before the birth of Edo State, the movie industry did not exist in Edo State and in the past 19 years, we have seen a gallant leap in the body of the industry.
The movie industry should celebrate more, because it came with the creation and has achieved more than the state itself; there is a lot to celebrate.
Is there any involvement of Government in advancing the growth and development of the industry in the state?
Unfortunately, I would say no, no in the sense that Edo State Government has not come to the realisation, that the entertainment industry which is the umbrella to the sub-sector of culture, art and tourism represent artistes to the advancement of Edo society.
It is on record that the culture is the greatest of asset we have in this state and our expression as a people finds relevance in our culture.
If the saying that charity begins at home is to be taken seriously, then our development should start from our culture and if the government can only be sincere to themselves they could find their root from the culture.
My advice to the government on the way forward is for the present government to task the Commissioner for Arts and Culture, and the government should be very sensitive in deciding who should occupy that position and it is not something that should be politicised rather it is something that should be done out of relevance.
They should task the Ministry for Arts and Culture and they should also invite us the stakeholders to a conference on how to move the state forward. It is at this point the ingredient that will develop our cultural industry will surface because it is all about intellectual properties and culture gives room for intellectual properties, no community, no state thrive without intellectual properties.
Edo movies and films churned out by Nollywood producers, any basis for comparison?
In the industry nationwide we are active and Edo State ranked 4th in the entire country, so to say that we are behind, I would say that there are people taking the 30th position, so we are doing just great.
The truth is that we have an industry powered by our culture. So what we have represents the expression of our people as it concerns our culture but that culture was not captured and stored so it was not possible for it to be transmitted.
When we are discussing the movie industry today we are discussing the art of capturing our cultural experience and expression with a view to storing them.
So that on a later day we can transmit them, and it is during the time of transmissions that others will get to know your experience, so we were just displaying our experience while others were capturing theirs like the Yorubas were capturing during the time of Ogunde.
The capturing of our cultural experience started not too long ago and this is where Edo State gave birth to their movie industry and talking of today, if we are 4th and the Yorubas are 2nd then we are not doing badly. Challenges in the Edo movie industry?
Actually in producing a movie a lot of people are faced with constraints but I want to de-emphasise this because whatever you do there are limitations but what is important is that we see it as an endeavour that is now commercialised.
So, I want to say that technically my constraint, my personal constraint is that a lot of people refused to see it as a commercial endeavour, they do not see that there is a business side to the practice, to the expression of your passions they see it as a passion-driven endeavour whereas it has a business side to it.
Producing a movie is passion- driven when you are already producing for you to set a turn around. It must be subject to distribution this is where the business aspect comes in and this has been my challenge, a lot of people go to produce films, without knowing how to sell it.
Charlatans in Edo movie profession?
Agreed that the industry, was kick-started by illiterates, people who do not really know what it takes to organise the movie sector, however, we must give kudos to them, their ingenuity gave birth to the idea of this particular industry today but having noticed that this was a major set-back, we of the present generation sat down to do something about that and we looked at having the sub-sector sub-divided into eight associations with those carrying out specific responsibility in the process of film making grouped together in this sub-classification and having been trained and set to co-operate, within the process people have become used to doing this in the professional way, the training is ongoing and is both within and without bringing in people from outside.
The other time, I was invited by the American government to their Embassy in Lagos where a workshop was held and some ace film makers were brought from America and the World Bank is interested in human capital development in the movie industry, these are with the view that quacks are separated from the profession.
International recognition and sales of Edo movies.
Interestingly Edo movie has been able to carve a niche for itself internationally.
That two movies done in Edo dialect have got nominations in the international film festival is enough to under score this point and certainly we also have an international market accounting for about 40% of our total turn-out in our Edo movie and we have our Edo people in diaspora who basically fancy our work above that of the English Nollywood movie and for the avoidance of doubt we are also members of Nollywood.
So currently the cable networks are also wooing us to give a chance for our Edo movies to be showcased on cable channels. And we are discussing.
To what extent has the discussion between the operators of cable networks and the congress of Edo movie practitioners yielded results?
Last week here, I was also engaged by some interested people from the World Bank and the Federal Ministry Finance at the Economic team Summit I attended where Nollywood was also given a slot that we should begin to discuss and they brought this cable network people. We are advancing in our discussion no doubt about it. I think at this point they have requested a formal proposal to be submitted and we are working on that.
In essence Benin Cultural Heritage through our local movies will take centre stage across the world, once the partnership deal with these operators of cable network is sealed.
The essence of having this partnership is not just to showcase our cultural heritage of the Binis in diaspora but for the entire world because the cable presents a viewing opportunity for the entire world. Our movies would be viewed in Australia or wherever and they will be subtitled, even though they do not understand the language they can tally along.
The future of the Edo movie industry come 2011.
I am going to tell you this is, this is not because I am a stakeholder but that the future of the Edo movie industry is the brightest in Nigeria. Go and mark this somewhere and take me on it anytime. The truth is that the English version, the Yoruba version and the Igbo version, they are already repeating themselves in terms of stories.
They are already recycling their best so to speak. And we have seen their best. You know Edo has come a long way, founded around 400 AD has witnessed so many controversies up to this point, a little of these stories have been told. That aside from contemporary issues, people can come up with ideas out of ingenuity, a lot is yet not touched in our Edo stories.
And more so our Edo people in diaspora have seen the need out of interaction to come back and start to invest. So we have people building studios. We have people investing, not necessarily in shooting the movie but investing in materials that can power the production of a movie. I think that is the bedrock of development in the movie industry, the Edo movie industry is waxing stronger by the day.
What is the industry doing in attracting the interest of youths into the industry.
We are doing so much in that direction, even beyond what you can conceptualize right now. In the area of human capital development we have decided to attract basically youths and unemployed adults into a forum where they can be retrained to function actively in this industry.
Then beyond that we are also taking the human capital development to a platform where we set out film academies. These film academies are registered as tertiary institutions to be recognized by JAMB and the Federal Ministry of Education. So with time you begin to see some names in all the JAMB brochure even people outside the state can apply to be student.
And with the present way JAMB is managing their admission exercise is such that if you apply for medicine and you did not get admission for medicine you go to others and some can be assigned to the movie industry. If you have a certified degree may be a diploma at whatever level in film in Nigeria then of course people will know, we have arrived, youths will begin to aspire even our children will begin to aspire to becoming professors of cinematography, this the issue.
The personality behind the brand name “Prolens Movies Ltd”.
I am Peddie Okoa, Chief Executive office of Prolens movies Ltd. I am a loyal subject of the Edo concept. I am a son of the soil who has passion for the expression and promotion of our culture through a device that can capture, store and transmit for later generations to see the way of life of our people.
I am interested more in the development of our culture, hence most of my movies are done in our native dialect. Peddie Okao is a married man with children whose primary constituency in terms of training is accountancy, whose primary occupation was banking, who has abandoned banking/accountancy for the work of art. Peddie Okao is doing everything to ensure there is advancement in the film industry in Edo State.
The void created by the death of Ukeke and Ereh Ejiro.
Constructively speaking, there is no replacing those two, the work of art those not create room for replacement. Ukeke was Ukeke, Ereh Ejiro was Ereh Ejiro. The vacuum they created can never be filled. They have done their own bit.
Their bit is appreciated and it will continue to make meanings to future development of artistes in Edo state. But the truth is this; those who are coming up and those who they left are also who they are and can never play Ukeke, Ukeke couldn’t have also played them. So they are making their mark and also advancing the development of the industry in Edo State. We appreciate all of them and together we have a task to make the movie industry in Edo state even greater.
A word of advice to up-coming youths in Edo and beyond.
My advice to the up-coming youth is that they should take whatever it is they want to do very seriously. And they should approach it with a constructive mind. Firstly the future of this country belongs to the educated.
You must seek education. If you do not want to go to the regular tertiary institution, institutions for training actors and actresses and filmmakers are already on in Edo State, enroll and get retained so that you are not a quack in the industry. |
