MOVIE MARKETERS ROLL OUT NEW RULES

If the current posture of the leadership of the Film/Video Producers Marketers Association of Nigeria is anything to go by, there is hope that sanity will soon return into the film industry in the country.

For years, stakeholders have lamented the breakdown in decorum both at the levels of the quality of films being produced, and at the rate at which the market is being flooded with all manners of 'films'.

But at a crucial meeting held by the leadership of the association in Lagos on Tuesday, it rolled out new rules that, it believes, are bound to help mop up the scene.

It is the aftermath of a three-month break the industry had observed. The break was called off on June 2.

”We embarked on a number of far-reaching measures because we believe that reform never comes to a class of people unless those concerned have worked out their own salvation,” said the FVPMAN President, Emmanuel Isikaku.

Among others, it has become a sin for a film maker to release movies in double or multiple parts simultaneously.

Said Isikaku, ”Henceforth, there will be nothing like a Part One, Two, Three, Four or Five movies whether approved by the Censors Board or not until our people understand what it means to have a movie run up to that point.”

Indeed, the number produceable has been reduced to 11 per every two weeks.

”This will also take care of the film glut we are presently experiencing, thereby, making it possible for producers to recoup their investment to enable them produce standard movies,” he added.

The FVPMAN producer noted that part of the fruit of the break was that the practitioners had been able to open ”a whopping 16 outlets” in the country during the three months. He expressed the hope that all the 36 states of the federation would have outlets by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the FVPMAN has also dissociated itself from a new distribution framework being proposed by the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board.

On this, Isikaku said, “We are worried not because the idea is bad in itself, but because we are the core investors in the movie industry. We have our distribution network and if anybody wants to talk about structures to distribute our products, we are the right people he should seek advice from. But right now, the reverse is the case.”