The 31st African film festival of Verona kicks off with a Nollywood blockbuster
Expected to thrill thousands of Italian cinema spectators this year (2011) is the Nollywood icon, Jeta Amata, as he takes his Black Gold, the struggle over Nigerian Niger Delta to the Verona festival this year (11 to 20 November 2011).
Although Nollywood is yet to make a big wave in the Italian Red Carpet or the Venice International Film Festival, the Italian audience have certainly had a tip of the Nigerian cinema, a film industry that has long taken the world by storm.
In 2008, Franco Sacchi, the Zambian born Italian-American took the Verona festival by surprise with his title: This is Nollywood. It was his attempt to enlighten both the local Italian and the general western audience that somewhere in West Africa, a miracle has happened.
“How did the Nigerian entrepreneurs managed to create a multimillion dollar film industry without any governmental support or the big international financiers?” This simple equation has triggered much debate among academics and some well-known economists, especially as it concerns the issue of wealth creation and sustainability. At the end, it has simply been qualified as the Nigerian or Nollywood phenomenon.
Italy is the owner of Eni Oil Company and Eni is one of the multinational oil companies pumping out their million-barrels of oil from the Nigerian Niger Delta, one of the most abused parts of the global ecological systems. This is where Jeta Amata is coming from and the film he has titled “Black Gold” is just about this argument.
Unlike the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of México last year, who will clean up the environmental mess in the Niger Delta? Who will fight for the local people whom the more than 50 years of oil activities have both deprived of occupation and their right to healthy living?
The frustration starts here and the violence is just one of the many consequences.
Of course, the Nigerian politicians have already soiled their names with this singular case, for their direct and indirect support of the big multinational corporations who are continuously abusing the Niger Delta, in their scramble for oil.
Today, the 10th of November 2011 is a remembrance day of the killing of Ken Saro-wiwa (November 10, 1995) by the Nigerian State. And just maybe some of the human right stubborn journalists around will be waiting to ask Jeta Amata what kind of serious impact his film will make in the Niger Delta.
In our recent interview with the artistic director of the festival, Mr. Stefano Gaiga, he cut the shut as followed: “From what I can understand, I feel that there is a lot of curiosity. From the local newspapers, the mass media; there are some information going around. We understand that one thing is the information mediated, coming from the newspapers and our local televisions and another thing is to have the information from those who are the direct protagonists of the situation.
Apart from having the opportunity to see a film produced by the people who have lived the actual situation and filmed those moments or hearing their testimonies, I think this will help to have a different perspective and to enlarge the horizon and to have a more critical vision of all that have happened.”
The festival according to the organizers is mainly going to focus on the Arab Spring with the theme: Revolution. Another area of focus will be the Africans in Diaspora who are by all standards linked to the affairs in their various home countries in Africa.
Also showing in the film festival are “Precipice”, a film by Julius Amedume, a Ghanaian, “Voyage a Alger”, from Algeria, “a country for my daughter” from South Africa, “creating the blackness of Africa”, a 30 minutes documentary on African identity and many more. For the complete events, see the festival program in this link.
Ewanfoh Obehi Peter
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