A transcontinental movie, Dr Bello, produced by Black Ivory Communications and featuring a handful of Nollywood and Hollywood stars like Isaiah Washington, Jimmy Jean Louis, Genevieve Nnaji and Vivica A. Fox is the first beneficiary of the $200m intervention fund for Nollywood promised by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010. The Managing Director of Nexim Bank, administrators of the fund, Roberts Orya, says, “I am delighted to announce the inauguration of the production of Dr. Bello. It is also symbolically the inauguration of NEXIM’s support for film production, with Black Ivory Ltd. being the first beneficiary client to avail a facility for film production under the bank’s creative arts and entertainment facility.”

According to Orya, the fear of loss of revenues and piracy, which had always impeded financial intervention in the industry, will be mitigated with the film’s initial release in theatres.

He says further, “The Nigerian creative arts and entertainment industry has done creditably well in the socio-economic development of the nation. The industry has, by recent estimates, created over one million jobs – directly and indirectly and generated a minimum of $500m in revenues annually. The industry is also widely adjudged as the most prolific in the world producing over 2500 films yearly in the past three years. It is instructive to highlight, however, that the bulk of the benefits derivable from films production is from theatrical film exhibitions. While the Nigerian film industry is on the right path towards enhancing sustainable growth and development, there is still room for improvement in areas of adoption of digital standards and the establishment of quality exhibition infrastructure.”

Film maker and chief executive officer of Black Ivory Ltd, Tony Abulu, opines, “Many distinguished and internationally-recognised Nigerian artistes living in the Diaspora have teamed up with great indigenous artistes to produce what is billed to be Nigeria’s foray into the international community. With what we are witnessing today, I can assure you that Nollywood is about to fly. We cannot continue to depend on our oil revenue. We have to begin to make products ourselves and we have to begin to package it for the international market, and those stories must be of an international standard.”

Scheduled for release later in the year, Dr. Bello tells the story of a brilliant cancer specialist, Dr Michael Durrant, who is emotionally troubled having lost his 10-year-old daughter to cancer. With a nagging wife who blames him for their only daughter’s death, he forms an unlikely bond with a likeable but sick seven-year-old boy. As time went by, the boy’s illness deteriorates and he is convinced to seek the help of an unorthodox Nigerian doctor, Dr Bello, who is known as a miracle worker. The boy recovers after Dr Bello administers a strange potion on him but the hospital finds out and suspends Durrant. His wife also leaves him as a chain of events begin to unravel.

Haitian-American actor, Jean-Louis, who plays the role of a Nigerian medical doctor in the movie, Phat Girls, says, “Here I am again in Nigeria. This is the third movie I will be doing as a Nigerian and it is the second time I will be playing a medical doctor. I think I have been adopted somehow to my new country. I am very happy to be playing the role of Dr Bello. I am looking forward to mixing with Nollywood. People in America don’t understand how such a feat as the second largest movie producers in the world is achieved in Nigeria but it tells them that things are changing. I think it is up to us now to take it to the next level and I am happy to be a part of that project.”