Guardian

HIS office setup is quite unusual; not your typical CEO office, where everything tends to be on the ‘executive side.’ Three single seats in the middle (he has preference for a particular one), a centre table with all sorts of film festival brochures piled on it, few shelves and his laptop computers, Odugbemi is good to go. Erh, not forgetting that bowl of sweets; it is always filled. With heaps of CD plates on his desk, it is clear this is one workaholic. Yet, you wonder why he prefers facing the wall; as if trying to turn his back away from any form of distraction.

When you listen to Odugbemi demonstrate his mastery of the act of filmmaking, you begin to imagine what the result would be, if someone like him ends up teaching in a film school. Aside from being knowledgeable in the act, his wealth of experience in the field, having worked on many international projects, remains a resource for young Nigerian filmmakers to tap from. For Odugnemi, filmmaking - particularly the documentary variant- is a passion.

However, looking at his journey into the business, one would understand why the award-winning filmmaker is passionate and very professional with his craft.

“I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker; I grew up at Fadeyi, Lagos. In the house I lived, there was a photographer in a store downstairs; as a young boy, I watched him take photographs. One thing I think that was the consciousness for me that early, was the fact that the storyteller was not the people beautifully dressed in their aso oke taking picture; it’s the man that was taking the picture of them that determines how they looked,” he recalled as he sipped coffee.

From all indications, being a storyteller was the main attraction for Odugbemi to enroll at the Montana State University to study Film, against the commercial viability of the act, which has practically turned almost every Tom, Dick and Harry into a ‘filmmaker.’

“I really like that fact that you can shape reality just by your view of it. It’s an empowering consciousness to understand that a common you can have a voice just because you have a camera. That I grew up with and I’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, so, I went to film school.”

TEAMING up with two friends, who have been attending the Reel Life Film Festival in Ghana, which is run by two founders from New York, Odugbemi initiated the i-Represent International Documentary Film Festival, iREP 2010.

“I have always been a documentary filmmaker because I believe that the capacity of the people to capture their experiences in fiction and non-fiction is critical to the understanding of their place in the world. Documentary is particularly political. If you look back during the colonial era, the British for instance, did documentaries with subject as to how to hold knife and fork together at a dinner; how the more you dressed British, the more you are ‘civilized,’ and the less you dressed British, the more you are almost pre-historic.”

Through these documentaries, Odugbemi noted that the British presented their country and culture as leading civilisation; they presented their political systems as the right way to run government.

“They made these documentaries and distributed them widely in all their colonies. As people consumed these films, it changed their behaviour; it turned them into British men with black skin. But worse part of it, it changed their psyche in such a way that they demined their own experience. In fact, some absent themselves from their own culture.”

He continued: “The lasting legacy of that trend is that, today in Nigeria, you still have people who subconsciously de-mine the cultural experience of their birth. You have people who spoke to their children only in English language and who give incentive to the child who does not speak the local language and punish the child that speaks any of the local languages. The resultant effect is that, it gradually kills the language! Somebody said that in 20 years, the Yoruba language would be no more. I’m trying to make a connection. I’m talking about the power of documentary.”

According to Odugbemi, the documentary film festival is providing platform for African filmmakers to tell the African stories from an African perspective.

“For us today, the resultant effect of what has been is that the Global Information Order that sustains, is that when you hear Africa, you instantly, subconsciously connect it internationally to wars, hunger, poverty, corruption, poor skill, disaster... But is that truly the story of Africa? I insist that this generation of Africans has a story that has been untold. Just 10 years ago, it would have been impossible to see a Nigerian man on the Forbes’ top-10 list of the richest men in the world, who did not steal money from government; today, Dangote is on the list and we can see how. Today, you have Nigerian mathematicians, who are winning international awards for breaking new grounds in mathematics and physics. Today, there is a Nigerian Nobel laureate; Nigerians are winning all kinds of award in literature and the same is going on across Africa.”

Despite the many achievements by hardworking Nigerians and Africans across the globe, the international media seem to have turned deaf ears to these realities?

“The story of the successes of Africa and Africans, is not the preferred story for the international media; they would rather carry the stories of dying children, diseased countries, wars and tribulation because it feeds into an economic paradigm that ensures that Africa is never attractive enough to be a tourist or investment destination. So, ultimately, all of this is economic, which when you now turn it around, you realise why the Global Information Order is critical to Africa’s economic renaissance.”

To Odugbemi, the absence of that African economic renaissance would ensure that poverty and development continue to be a problem in Africa.

“When you go back from where I’ve come now, you will realise that the most important thing for Africa to do is to actually take over the storytelling of its own experience. Go back to what the British did; it’s their model; lets use it. Can’t we start to make documentaries of a different story of Africa? Can’t we be the one actually telling the story of the African experience and not people from outside of the experience? Can’t we be the ones affording ourselves a more 360-degree view of the African experience,” he quizzed.

As far as the filmmaker is concerned, the African experience is a global phenomenon that transcends geographical borders.

“If you go to China, there are Africans living there; surviving there, speaking Chinese, doing commerce. In being there, they have brought to the geographical China a piece of the African experience. Right now, a lot of people tend to be surprised when they actually have encounters with Africans - ‘that’s not what we read in the National Geography.’ Can’t we then take control, using the power of the motion to tell our stories? Yes, there’s war in Africa; yes there’s poverty in Africa; yes, there’s war in Syria and in Europe; there’s poverty in America, but it’s the face of America that America shows you that you see.”

He continued: “We come from cultures that span a civilization way beyond what the colonialists brought; we come from cultures that have a system of government that said it was all for one and one for all; where the least of us is taken care of by the best of us. We need to celebrate our heritage; we have a colourful heritage of fashion, dance, dress, makeup, drama and performance that can make us a cultural superpower; even if we cannot be a military superpower.”

The unique opportunity that we have today, according to Odugbemi, is that the world of globalisation allows us to project into the international community, which makes us unique.

“We have a lot to teach the world, and as long as we do not take practical steps to do that, we will constantly consume, via the TV, a new cultural imperialism, where we lose a sense of self and become black Europeans living in a geographical space called Africa; documentary is at the heart of that consciousness.”

Obviously, iRep has begun a movement to push this awareness to the entire black continent, by first, demystifying the popular impression about documentary.

“People say documentaries are boring and un-entertaining, but that’s not true. Documentaries are extremely entertaining and come in different styles. They can be political, cultural, religious, etc, but one great thing about documentaries is that having watched them for 20 minutes, you cannot leave without something staying in your subconscious; you go away a better enlightened person,” Odugbemi noted.

For the iRep team, the larger picture is to get young Nigerian filmmakers to become empowered with this awareness and consciousness, such that, what is called the African experience, becomes something they are interested in documenting.

“Nigeria was 50 last time, if you want to do a documentary about the Independence and the conferences that led to our independence, the only place you could go was the BBC; you can’t get it from any source that is Nigerian. History is told in present tense; history is not told later; that’s the essence of the movement”

IREP, by its very name, is meant to inspire filmmakers to re-present their African experience through films.

“Today, technology makes that very easy; all you need is a camera and a laptop to edit. I think this is important because we are in a democracy that is a work in progress; documentaries are going to be important to how we hold our leaders accountable. It’s important that we are able to process the unfolding everyday experience of this democracy for us to sustain it,” Odugbemi said.

Based on its format, iRep has a training model that trains people in producing documentary, scriptwriting and the legalities of research.

“There’s an empowerment part to the training that I think is important; we train for two days. We are going to be inviting experts to train participants. We are going to be using this opportunity to teach practical things. However, the films we will show at the festival are also meant to showcase kinds of works possible with documentary; a lot of them are African films from the Diaspora.”

According to Odugbemi, there’s a balance where the festival shows quality works and also trains the young about how to empower themselves to do this.

“Last time, we had over 100 young filmmakers at the iRep training and we’ve sustained that community through online interactivity. Those who benefited from that training are now writing; I think they have a project they plan to do. So, our intervention is not all about talks; we are being very practical. Our capacity to sustain and get result is in how we get our young filmmakers to come to this appreciation and, then, to be empowered with the skills to move forward and actualise their ideas.”

He charged fellow filmmakers to realise the importance of having a voice as a filmmaker and also make proper use of the opportunity.

“I thank God that I’ve also come to the consciousness of how not just having the voice, but using the voice. There are many filmmakers, who have the voice because they have camera, but are saying no profound things. iRep is an opportunity to say to my friends in the industry that this is an incredible privilege to be a filmmaker; this means, you have power. Using power as a filmmaker is the capacity to be profound in the subjects you take on, to understand the responsibility and understand that you can be an agent of positive change in your society.”

A professional to the core, Femi Odugbemi is in the league of very few Nigerian filmmakers, who have maintained a high level of professionalism in the industry. While some of his counterparts are impaired by the harsh conditions of filmmaking in the country, the CEO of DVWorx Studios & Zuri24 Media, is more interested in seeking for knowledge that would keep him abreast of the best practices in the business. Little wonder he spent time travelling all over the world, attending conferences and film festivals.

“The truth is, you can’t sell your relative cheaply and buy them expensive later. Essentially, our industry is in a place where those that have moral responsibility to support its growth in terms of quality and professionalism don’t seem to believe in it. They believe more in the foreign professionals. I went to school and studied Film; that’s my profession.”

Though not your typical ‘Nollywood filmmaker’, who would shoot a feature film under one week, Odugbemi attests that there has been significant improvement in the industry in recent times.

“I think it’s false in Nigeria of today, trying to make a difference between a filmmaker and a ‘Nollywood filmmaker.’ If you look at Nollywood 10 years ago and Nolywood today, you have to accept that there’s a new consciousness; there’s a consciousness that we can do better. There’s a consciousness that this is a craft and we need to learn how to speak the film language. That consciousness is taking hold because the quality of films that are made now, is beginning to admit the need for better sound, better picture and better interpretation.”

All these Odugbemi attributed to the emergence of young film directors, who are determined to move the industry to the next level, through quality works and being professional in their approach to filmmaking.

“Today, we have young directors, who have taken courses with the New York Film Academy; I’m kind of being very optimistic. I think it has been more of Nigerian filmmakers, who haven’t paid attention to the film language itself, and therefore have created works of such mediocre quality that have sort of defined the general view. But then, there are filmmakers, who have tried to be consistent with certain quality to film language; there are quite a few of them,” he noted.

While giving credit to young filmmakers, who championed the new Nigerian film industry called Nollywood, Odugbemi faulted the foundation process, which did not take into consideration, the country’s history of filmmaking.

“The trouble with our industry is that we neglected our history and decided we were going to start history mid-way in our history. If we have a situation where for instance, people like Ola Balogun, Bayo Awala, Tunde Oloyede, Jimi Odumosu and other directors, who were in the industry in the early days ... if we had created a model in which these professionals were able to mentor the younger vibrant directors that created Nollywood, what we would have had is a system where the vibrant youth would be balanced by the wisdom, understanding, education and experience of the old. We would have had a continuity built on the history of film in Nigeria, which didn’t start in the 80s, but in the 50s. What we are finding now is that the compartments are beginning to come together and thus, I think we will have a stronger industry.”