Since the announcement by the Ekiti State government that Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, will be directing an epic historical movie on the 19th century Yoruba civil-war, the centre seems not to be holding among the stakeholders in the Nigerian Motion Picture industry otherwise known as Nollywood.

While a few perceive the development as welcoming, others hold a contrary view as they accuse Soyinka as never being a believer in Nollywood. But what may be hidden under the guise of annoyance towards the Nobel Prize winner, Trends learnt, may be fear for the high international profile Soyinka has. They are however maintaining that he should follow due process in procedures guiding the movie industry in order to excel in the film he is about to direct.

The Ekiti State government through its Senior Special Assistant on public communication, Mr. Moses Jolayemi and the producer of the film, Chief Jimoh Aliu announced some few weeks ago that Soyinka is to direct and act as the principal consultant to the production team that would produce Kiriji, a movie about the Yoruba-civil war of the 19th century being sponsored by the Ekiti State government.

Soyinka, it was gathered, would not only act in the film, he agreed to write the English sub-title of the film as well as provide the foreign actors and actresses who would act the roles of European colonialists in the movie.

To show the extent of involvement of the prolific writer, he has put a stop to his personal projects to make sure that the film would be one of the most celebrated epic films about the Yoruba race in history.

Soyinka, who has on a number of occasions both at home and abroad berated Nollywood once referred to it as the N-word. He said he decided to take the offer due to the level of passion and interest shown by the sponsors of the film.

“I don’t want to leave you with any doubt about my commitment to this project. The history of the black people is paramount to me. This is because the history of Africa has not been told by we black people, but rather it has been told through the eyes of other people who use it to suit their own purposes,” he said during the meeting with representatives of the state government but the battle line seems to be drawn by die-hard Nollywood stakeholders as they say Soyinka should not expect the project to be all rosy considering the hard criticisms and utter disregard the Nobel laureate has for the industry.

vikiviko:

They are however maintaining that he should follow due process in procedures guiding the movie industry in order to excel in the film he is about to direct.

Sure, bribes and all . . .can't someone make an independent movie in Nigeria though? Goodluck to Soyinka anyways.

what are they scared of,with the rubbish they produce in the name of movies a real professional and intellectual is stepping in and they are having an inferiority complex,its definitely for politics on the part of the govt but a good thing for nollywood, at last we wont get sentences like "do you drop the gun" or "a trailer loaded of bag of cement"lol

Ekiti Kete

that guy should keep to what he does best: writing books and speaking english and let others do their job.

Good thing people like you dont matter.

did i offend someone?

He's just trying to make a movie. How is that a big deal; it may fail anyway. And where the hell is the source of this tale?

OMO IBO:

did i offend someone?

Stick to what you know is all

Instead of you to be applauding someone who wnats to do a movie on something of significance to Nigeria, you are saying bullshit about how it should be left to the "others". The same "others" that rip off Hollywood movies.

Enemies of Nigeria.

oh dammit, now she's pissed off.
like I a give a flying toss what u think. i'll say it again, he is better of speaking english and writing books.

As a big fan of Soyinka, I have no doubt this will be a mind blowing production. I just hope he keeps the English subtitles simple . Never mind the nay sayers, the 'due process' is how to manufacture a movie in 2 weeks. . .sorry folks, there won't be any 'due process' here. If only more people like Soyinka who have the true passion can step in and join hands with the few good genuine Nollywood practitioners. . .

Sure the gatecrashers will be there manufacturing their one-week-slap-it-together-shove-it-down-their-throat atrocities and their fans will always gulp it down under the guise of 'country hard give them a break'. The moment it dawns on them that people have embraced more polished productions and no longer cling to 'country hard syndrome', they will either continue manufacturing a big hunk of cowshit, drop out or step up.

OMO IBO:

oh dammit, now she's pissed off.
like I a give a flying toss what u think. i'll say it again, he is better of speaking english and writing books.

and I will repeat MYSELF and say you're an slowpoke and stick to the little you know which has nothing to do with stuff like this.

grafikdon:

. If only more people like Soyinka who have the true passion can step in and join hands with the few good genuine Nollywood practitioners. . .

The moment it dawns on them that people have embraced more polished productions and no longer cling to 'country hard syndrome', they will either continue manufacturing, drop out or step up.

Exactly

Here's hoping "producers" will learn a thing or two.

All these bitter people that dont even watch these movies, now want to come and yarn dust cos Soyinka has joined amnd if anything the movie is mostly a Jimoh ALIU production who actually IS a talented scrtiptwriter and actor.

If you have a problem with Soyinka doing stuff, then go and tell your Chico Ejiro or whoemever to do movies based on historical times in Nigeria instead of ripping off cornty Hollywood movies. ok?

D-reloaded:

and I will repeat MYSELF and say you're an slowpoke and stick to the little you know which has nothing to do with stuff like this.

hahahahahahaha, that guy is only going to speak english in the so called movie should he behind one.
D-reloaded have a cuppa me darling.

EDIT: i knew all along ur comments had tribal sentiments in it. thank u for confirming it.
anyways, im all for sticking to what u do best. he knows fucc all about producing, acting or directing. he should sit his ass down and write more books and speak more english.

Have a cuppa on me again darling

OMO IBO:

hahahahahahaha, that guy is only going to speak english in the so called movie should he behind one.
D-reloaded have a cuppa me darling.

EDIT: i knew all along your comments had tribal sentiments in it. thank u for confirming it.
anyways, im all for sticking to what u do best. he knows fucc all about producing, acting or directing. he should sit his ass down and write more books and speak more english.

Have a cuppa on me again darling

You my dear are a slowpoke. tribal sentiments. Rofl.  against who? You? Dude comot from my face. So bloody sick of retards babbling garbage in stuff that they know NOTHING about. Go play on Forums Games or something. Eranko.

Bloody enemies of progress. Nigerians try to do things based on historical happenings of OUR country and jackasses like you, instead of applauding it, just running your damn mouth. God Forbiod you jerks respect anything that doesnt rip off stuff made by the West.

If Achebe decided to make a movie of Things Fall Apart or Arrow of God, would you say the same bullshit that he should "stick to just writing poetry and books" ??

The hell do you know about the art of film anyway?

Did you read the article very well before you even decided to yarn dust

that guy is only going to speak english in the so called movie should he behind one.

You really think a movie based on the Yourba civil war will have people speaking "English" in it?

Did the article even SAY he was going to be an actor in the movie? Are you daft? Are you aware of the diffrence between acting and directing? You are aware that he's a playwright that studied African drama right?

So if ANYTHING he deserves to be part of the "Nollywood" industry than most people.

You should just "edit" your life.

u need to calm down. damn hahahahahahahahahahahh
can u see how much venom uve been spewing?

by the way 'things fall apart' has been made already. it is very clear that you're a tribalist and your comments show this. mind u i havent suggested or implied such but thats all ur post is riddled with. do your self a favour and have another cuppa.
curse all u want and like, wole soyinka's movie will be C.R.A.P.

CALM DOWN CHICK. its only a conversation. Wole Yoyinka will do fucc all.
se o ti gbo?

Things Fall Apart was made as a TV special not a movie. Once again I know more about stuff like this than you ever will.

I'm done discussing this with you, you're an bitter "wankster" illiterate who worships foreigners (hence your pathetic lingo) and wishes nothing good for Nigeria. Oloshi.

lol, you're best moving on. all uve done is curse without getting your points across.
dammit. na only u dey call me all names, call tribes and curse other people and yet u fail to express your self.

On a more serious note i think the movie will be cool considering the fact WOLE SHOYINKA is a correct play writer.

anyone in doubt of the man's ability to undertake the whole thing should see the play kongi harvest or harvest of kongi(not sure which, and you ll see the man's genius,also the mere fact that a noble laureate in literature is directing anf fully involved in a movie is bound to attract a lot of international interests especially from scholars of african studies abroad, i see the film being the next big thing as far as epics go in naij

Nollywood is paranoid, lol.

lucabrasi:

anyone in doubt of the man's ability to undertake the whole thing should see the play kongi harvest or harvest of kongi(not sure which, and you ll see the man's genius,also the mere fact that a noble laureate in literature is directing anf fully involved in a movie is bound to attract a lot of international interests especially from scholars of african studies abroad, i see the film being the next big thing as far as epics go in naij

Exactly. Bitter people refuse to reason cos they have no standards.

all this one na long thing.

like say we get interest for all this cultural poto poto

abeg naija people like the outrageous, the basest, the ridiculous pass any kain cultural realisation.

so pls. make dem carry dey go.

na when monkey start to dey get culture.

ohhhhh, she came back! u can't get enough eh?
i don't give a flying toss what u or anyone says, he is better off speaking english. this time accept it or slit your wrist and die.

i wonder who the bitter one is, the one thats cursing and and calling tribes or the one that says what he thinks without tribal sentiments? i'l let u answer that question

ya trick ya!

combrazor:

all this is much ado about nothing.

i have nothing but respect for Prof. Soyinka's considerable literary skills, but as i have said a million times before: film is not a purely literary art, and as such, it takes more than literary artists to change Nollywood.

what Nollywood needs is not great writers per se, but proper producers.

so Soyinka can be counted on to write a great script . . . that's excellent. but after he writes his script, is it his writing talent that is going to ensure that the costumes are authentic to the period unlike all these other Nollywood "epics"? is it his writing talent that will give us decent sound on a movie for once? will his great script improve the lighting and camera work?

this is not the first time Wole Soyinka has been involved with Nigerian movies, you know . . . . in fact, Soyinka not only wrote the very first Nigerian movie, 1970's Kongi's Harvest, he also starred in it. and by most accounts, it was not very good. so much so that Soyinka later disowned the movie altogether and has since tried to distance himself from it.

Soyinka made his directorial debut in 1984 with Blues for a Prodigal, and that movie didn't exactly set the world on fire, either. so it's not as if Soyinka has this magic touch that is going to turn around Nollywood.

i'm not saying it's a bad thing that he's doing this movie . . . . quite the opposite, in fact. i believe that if nothing else, his movie will have a solid dramatic base, which is more than a lot of Nollywood productions can boast of.

but i don't really expect it to have much impact on Nollywood either way.

especially since it deals with Yoruba historical subject matter. i don't know whether or not the movie will actually be in Yoruba, but it will most likely end up grouped into the YMG category, which is considered a completely different beast from Nollywood anyway.

i co-sign ur post but disagree with the bolded bit.

there's a big difference between writing scripts and writing books. Uncle wole's strong point is in writing books and not writing scripts.
to be honest, i had no idea he wrote and performed in Kongi Harvest. Infact, i had no idea there was anything as such. but i did a likkle research and found out that the movie's performance was poor. u also confirmed this in ur post.

i have nothing against wole soyinka but i believe he should stick to what he does best. i wonder what difference the movie would make should it be released.

combrazor:

OMO IBO said:
actually, Soyinka is a renowned dramatist who has written many plays and even won awards for them. if you went to school in Nigeria, you probably remember reading his classic plays "The Trials of Brother Jero" and "Jero's Metamorphosis" in class, or watching them on stage. here is a list of his plays:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wole_soyinka#Plays

so he has a solid background in scriptwriting for the theater.

having gone through the list on wikipedia, those plays do not ring a bell what so ever. wole soyinka is known for writing books and not acting, directing or producing. there is no doubt he may have tried doing other things. but the only thing he is successful in and widely known for is writing books.

well, i dont think there was any need for the name-calling. i thought we were having a conversation. you make ur opinion and i make mine. if we fail to agree then so be it.

my question to u is how known are those plays he wrote? my answer is the average nigerian of today knows zilch about them.
now compare that to the books or plays regarding King jaja of Opobo. the average african knows a thing or two about it and its' likes.
D-reloaded made mention of chinua achebe's 'things fall apart'. now compare this book and the play to that of wole soyinka. which is known to the average nigerian.

ones again, i'v got nothing against wole soyinka. i respect him. but i believe he is best writing books and none delving into acting, producing or directing. i just believe he is not cut out for the above.

should you choose to respond please lets have a conversation and not war of words. besides the link u posted requires some log in in details which i do not have.

I'll assume u missed the part where i asked u to compare books and plays regarding jaja of Opobo and that of wole soyinka.
mind u, the book about king jaja of opobo was written well before any of wole soyinka's.

i'll also want to question the relevance and impact his book/plays may have had, is having and would have considering the fact that his very first novel
'The Interpreters' which was published in 1965 cannot be compared to that of jaja of opobo and the even chinua achebe's things fall apart (1958).
the average nigerian would not read something they know nothing about. hence, the rather poor popularity of his plays/books.

in essense, im saying, wole soyinka is a wonderful writer, hence the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African so honored. but that is what he does best.

combrazor:

correction: he is known to YOU for writing books and not plays . . .  but the fact that YOU are ignorant does not make the truth less so.

as i already mentioned, the Jero plays were for years fundamental, required reading in every literature course in Nigerian schools, as were Soyinka's "The Lion and the Jewel," "Madmen and Specialists" and "Death and the King's Horseman."

i don't know whether you actually went to school or not, but if you did . . . i'm puzzled that you never heard of these plays.

more recently, "The Beatification of Area Boy" was a big hit in the 1990s, with acclaimed productions of the play staged in London, New York and even Kingston, Jamaica.

here is a New York Times review of the New York production:

http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?html_title=&tols_title=BEATIFICATION%20OF%20AREA%20BOY,%20THE%20(PLAY)&pdate=19961011&byline=By%20BEN%20BRANTLEY&id=1077011432268

in fact, now that i think about it . . .  what you are saying is complete rubbish. Wole Soyinka is actually first and foremost a playwright. he has written only two--yes, TWO--novels: The Interpreters and Season of Anomie.

his plays are much, much, much more famous than his books. in fact, if you look him up in the Encyclopedia Britannica

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9068955/Wole-Soyinka

he is described as a "Nigerian playwright and political activist" . . . not as a "Nigerian author" or even as "Nigerian writer."

"Nigerian playwright." THAT is what he is preeminently known for.

if you are ignorant of his work, maybe you should try to educate yourself rather than pretending that because YOU don't know about it, it doesn't exist.

Thank YOU. Exactly.

All that I've been trying to put across to the doofus, of course I'm not as calm as you are, razor.  .

Buit it irritates me to no end when people just run their mouths on stuff they don't know ESPECIALLY when it comes to topics like this.

God Forbid they actually bother to sit and learn something instead of embarrassing themselves. eg "all he can do is speak big english". Ugh. shameless

You claim to be Nigerian and don't know that Soyinka has written more plays than novels, or perhaps you don't even know the diffrence between the two. 

you make the case that more people know Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" than they do Soyinka's plays. let's assume that this is a true statement.

if you use your brain for a minute, do you think that you might be able to figure out WHY this might be so?

do you think that it might have something to do with the fact that most Nigerians don't go to the theater? more people read novels than watch plays, right? so it kind of follows that the average man might be more familiar with a writer of novels than with a playwright, right?

also, more people watch TV than watch plays (or read novels), so considering that "Things Fall Apart" was made into a very popular TV series, it makes sense that more people might know it than Soyinka's "Madmen and Specialists," yes?

(which--if we link it back to the original point--only goes further to invalidate your previous argument that Soyinka is known for writing books)

what bothers me most here is that your argument is not only factually baseless, it seems to be motivated by ETHINIC considerations. you obviously have problems giving a Yoruba writer his props and that is the most ridiculous thing to build an argument on.

First off, I don't even know why you are minding him. Majority of Nigerians KNOW about the Lion And The Jewel. Infact most AFRICANS and onward know about it. He;s just trying to extend his own ignorance over Nigerians. Excuse me sah, let mr and ms average Nigerian speak for themselves

As for the last paragraph, good to know I'm not the only one who noticed, yet I'm the tribalist? Lmao 

My point of even bringing up Achebe in the first place was to prove a point. If Achebe were to decide to make Arrow Of God and his other works into movies, would OmoIbo accept someone saying "He should just stick to novels and leave the movies to the others", wouldnt that be ridiculous? I personally think so.
It was NOT to compare the two men.

all these people looking for sneaky ways to cause hateful arguements instead of leaving constructive criticism

You're not that smart jare. 

combrazor:

i didn't miss your point, OMO IBO.

if anything, you are trying to change your point.

originally, you said that Soyinka is known for "writing books and speaking English."

i actually somewhat agreed with your overall point that Soyinka's literary credentials did not mean that he would be able to make a great movie, but rather than you just accepting that and being okay with it, you went out of your way to point out that he cannot write a script because he writes books.

i told you that he actually has a solid background in drama and playwriting. you countered that maybe he "tried" to do other things, but the thing he is best known for is books.

i demonstrated to you that he had written only two novels, but several award-winning plays. i pointed out that he is best known as a playwright.

that should have been the end of the discussion there, but now you want to make it a comparative issue: which is better known, Wole Soyinka or Chinua Achebe?

that is irrelevant, my friend. the point of the entire argument was never about any competition between Soyinka and Achebe, or whatever play about Jaja of Opobo you are talking about. (do you mean "Opu-Jaja" by Adam Fiberesima? that's not a play, it's an opera

http://combandrazor..com/2008/03/and-now-for-my-next-number-id-like-to.html

and i assure you that most Nigerians have not seen or heard it)

the argument was about whether Soyinka has the ability to write a solid script. seeing that he is a Nobel Prize-winning DRAMATIST . . . i would venture that YES, he does have the ability to do so.

that's the end of the argument.

but if you want to take it further, i can do that . . . .

you make the case that more people know Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" than they do Soyinka's plays. let's assume that this is a true statement.

if you use your brain for a minute, do you think that you might be able to figure out WHY this might be so?

do you think that it might have something to do with the fact that most Nigerians don't go to the theater? more people read novels than watch plays, right? so it kind of follows that the average man might be more familiar with a writer of novels than with a playwright, right?

also, more people watch TV than watch plays (or read novels), so considering that "Things Fall Apart" was made into a very popular TV series, it makes sense that more people might know it than Soyinka's "Madmen and Specialists," yes?

(which--if we link it back to the original point--only goes further to invalidate your previous argument that Soyinka is known for writing books)

what bothers me most here is that your argument is not only factually baseless, it seems to be motivated by ETHINIC considerations. you obviously have problems giving a Yoruba writer his props and that is the most ridiculous thing to build an argument on.

please, dude . . .  just give it up. you're embarrassing yourself at this point.

thank u for answering my question. case closed.
remembered when i said 'the average nigerian would not read something they know nothing about. hence, the rather poor popularity of his plays/books.
the bolded bit in ur last response answered that question.

common now combrazor, my posts, comments and opinion gives no credence to tribal sentiments. if you're honest to yourself and if u go through my post u'd notice that chinua achebe's things fall apart was only mentioned as a passive statment. D-reloaded was the one who brought the tribal thing up which i have ignored.