Filmmaker Kunle Afolayan has explained why he has reduced his involvement in producing cinema films, saying the current demands of film promotion have become exhausting.
Afolayan spoke at the Lagos Business of Film summit, where he shared his concerns about how cinema films are now marketed in Nigeria. He said the pressure on filmmakers to constantly create online content in order to sell movies has made the process difficult for him.
“I am one of the people who started all of these cinema gigs. Even though all this dancing, I started before anybody. I danced in London. So, it was not just local,” he said.
“This was 2006. We did all the runs. It is draining. I want to 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 sell without 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. But we have stories we have been working on for more than four years, and we are willing to do.”
Afolayan said the industry needs to rethink how films are promoted, noting that quality storytelling can still attract strong audience interest without excessive publicity.
“They want to release a film in December, and they announced it 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 said.
“The whole world went boom because they have not seen anything from us in a while. If there is a collaboration this year, we can make a great film, and then we will go to the cinema. But we will not dance.”
Kunle Afolayan is one of Nollywood’s most established filmmakers, with cinema titles such as The Figurine, October 1 and Citation. In recent years, he has focused more on projects for streaming platforms, including Anikulapo and Ijogbon, which were released on Netflix.
