FILMMAKER Kunle Afolayan returned from Paris, France at the weekend with the good news that his jubilee hit movie, Phone Swap has been voted best film and best viewers choice film at the maiden edition of the Nollywood Week in Paris. The event, which held between May 31 and June 3 in Paris, was organized by a Paris-based non-governmental arts organization to showcase the best of Nigerian films.

The need to provide a dramatic visualization of the rich African culture and tradition documented in some Nigerian films is the reason the week was held and it featured public screening of films like Mahmood Ali Balogun’s Tango With Me, Keke Bongos Ikwe’s Inale and Chineze Anyaene’s Ije.  Some of these films have also featured in some international film festivals in the past. But while the industry has been recording giant strides both locally and internationally with its movies, one Mr. Richard Bell, Chief Executive Officer of a Kenyan PayTV outlet — Wananchi Group — thinks that movies that have come out of the phenomenon called Nollywood amount to heap of waste.

Bell was quoted to have described Nigerian movies as “Rubbish”.  He was speaking at the East Africa Communication Conference and Exhibition held recently with the theme, “Seizing the Digital Growth Opportunities in a better Connected East Africa.” Bell whose company owns and runs Zuku, a fledging pay TV operation in Kenya delivered a paper on opportunities and challenges for operators and content providers in next five years.  Bell whose company is struggling unsuccessfully to unseat the market leader, DStv in East Africa told his astonished audience that  “African content should not be just about rubbish Nigerian movie” and claims to have the widest variety of content on DTH.

This position by Bell completely negates a general feeling across Africa where Nigerian movies are seen as the pivot of a developing African film industry and the cultural mainstay of Africans in the continent and the Diaspora. In fact, one of the reasons why Nollywood has grown in popularity domestically and in and around the continent of Africa is because of its movies.  Critics agree that offerings of Nollywood has helped shaped perceptions and provided a dramatic visualization of Nigeria’s rich culture and traditions.

If Bell thinks that his position will go unchallenged then the PayTV boss is mistaken. Some Nollywood practitioners have risen in defense of the industry they variously described as the embodiment of Nigeria’s soft power.

Kunle Afolayan says he doesn’t have any issue with critics of the industry. “You don’t make any progress without people criticizing you” he says. But the filmmaker, who recently was a guest of the Tokyo International Film Festival where three of his movies —Irapada, Figurine and Phone Swap were on display, says the only problem he has with Bell’s position is the fact that the PayTV boss made a  generalised comment. “I don’t think it is a fair comment to lump all our movies together and say what we do here is rubbish. I think the man (Bell) made that comment based on the movies he has seen or the cheap ones he has tried to buy or the cheap ones that are shown all around Africa. If our movies are all rubbish as he is suggesting, then we will not be making festivals and cinema rounds. So he should just restrict his views to what he knows about and not generalize. If he wants quality content, he should come and I will show him where to get it and he should be ready to pay for them because some of these channels don’t want to pay for good content so they go for these kpa kpa kpa (hurriedly cobbled) movies and when they are disappointed quality wise, they generalise. Yes these movies are made here but they do not represent the entire industry. It is the same way you find potato (badly helmed) movies in Hollywood and in Bollywood. So to dismiss everything we do here is unfair and I think he (Bell) may need to de-generalize,’’ he argued.

Former President of the Directors Guild of Nigeria and coordinating Chairman of the moribund Coalition of Nollywood Guilds and Associations (CONGA), Bond Emeruwa described the comments by Bell as ‘most uncharitable and unfair’.  Emeruwa noted that it was unfair for Bell to make such a comment about an industry that has provided enough content that has kept most East African stations running. For Emeruwa, most East African cable stations are enjoying top ratings today because of the content provided by the industry ‘that Bell is now deriding’. He says: “sometimes, it is best to ignore comments like this but it is also good at times not to leave comments like this unchallenged.”

He also is talking rubbish and he is talking from an uninformed position. If he is informed, then he should not have generalized. I know there are some movies that will leave you with a sour taste. Oh, plenty of them and they are the cheap contents you see on most of our stations. But that is not to say that everything Nollywood has produced in 20 years or thereabout is rubbish. Are films by Tunde Kelani, Kunle Afolayan, Amaka Igwe, Andy Amenechi, myself, Zik Zulu, Tade Ogidan, Jetta Amata, Teco Benson, and others rubbish? So what is Bell talking about? I think he needs to deal with the right people and not pass a verdict based on works he is exposed to. I know there are some terrible movies but it is wrong to describe all our movies as rubbish. We take exception to that and I will personally demand an apology from that company before I do any business with them now and in the future. There is no industry without bade movies but you cant just say all our movies are rubbish. I wont accept that’’.

East Africa Communication Conference where Bell made the assertion is reputed as the region’s leading digital event and it attracts over 600 plus telecommunication professionals who converged to network and do business.