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Is this a good time for a very short story about how I was deprived from Prophetic Bragging Rights in Nollywood about a decade ago?
1. Sometime in 2012 (or was it 2011 or 2013?), I was invited to a small film festival in Lagos, courtesy @tonikan11 and Ugoma Adegoke. The festival was @LCAFilmFest. Travelled all the way from Lafia town.
2. At the festival, I saw Confusion Na Wa and was struck by just how well-written it was. Nothing I had seen in Nollywood prepared me for the film's dark humour, its philosophy, its worldview. It turned out that the director was a guy chilling opposite my hotel room.
3. I had to interview him. I was writing for Metropole while handling prescriptions at the general hospital in Lafia. I returned to Abuja and had a conversation with my publisher, the great @Waziriadio. I was super-convinced I had seen the future of Nollywood.
4. We had to get this guy on the cover. Mr Adio gave permission and I tracked the man down in Abuja. It was probably at Ishaya Bako's house. I got the interview and told the director that we would use a grand headline for the story. King of New Nollywood or something as royal.
5. That was where the wahala started. The guy said no. We couldn't do that. I see now that it was a mistake that I told the subject the headline of a forthcoming piece, but at the time I thought it was not so bad. I got the story. We changed the headline. Big mistake.
6. Since then, I've watched this director do fine stuff, get to festivals, judge competitions, receive funding, make some money. With each thing he's achieved, I feel a bit bad I can't produce a cover with the headline and say, "Look, I said this guy was great a decade ago!"
7. With @NetflixNaija announcing that Oloture is coming in October, that feeling worsens. @kennethgyang is effectively the first male director from Nollywood to get a Netflix Original. (He's second overall, after @GenevieveNnaji1.)
I want to say, "I discovered him!" But no proof.
I want to say, "I discovered him!" But no proof.
8. So I am writing this thread to say congratulations @kennethgyang. But also so that the historical records show that I saw it coming. This is my bid for a footnote in the history of Nigerian filmmaking.
9. The man appears. Congratulations on #OlotureTheMovie https://twitter.com/kennethgyang/status/1308024999345819650?s=20
