Why I stepped back from producing cinema films -Kunle Afolayan

Kunle Afolayan, the Nigerian filmmaker,has revealed why hehas stepped back from producing cinema releases in recent years, citing theexhaustive promotional demands of the modern market. Speaking at the Lagos Business of Film summit, the51-year-old director and producer stated that the relentless cycle of contentcreation needed to promote theatrical films is unsustainable for him. Despite being a pioneer of Nigeria’s cinema resurgence, heurged the industry to develop less draining marketing strategies. Afolayan expressed admiration for colleagues who sustainconstant social media engagement, but admitted it wasn’t for him. “I am one of the people who started all of these cinemagigs. Even though all this dancing, I started before anybody. I danced inLondon. So, it was not just local,” he said. “This was 2006. We did all the runs. It is draining. I wantto make a film if you guarantee that I do not have to dance to sell that film.Are there other ways? We need to come up with other strategies. How do we sellwithout exhausting ourselves? “I do not know how Funke and the likes of them are doing it– creating all of those skits, changing costumes every day. I cannot do it. Butwe have stories we have been working on for more than four years, and we arewilling to do.” Afolayan emphasised that a return to cinema is possiblethrough meaningful collaboration. He pointed to the recent buzz generated by asingle screengrab from his upcoming series ‘Anikulapo’ as proof of audienceappetite for quality. “They want to release a film in December, and they announcedit in January. But my point is, I will make an amazing film. Look at‘Anikulapo’. We released just a screengrab of the series like two weeks ago,and it was as if people had been starved of good content,” he added. “The whole world went boom because they have not seenanything from us in a while. If there is a collaboration this year, we can makea great film, and then we will go to the cinema. But we will not dance.”

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