Nigeria film practitioners harp on cultural heritage

The professionals made the call at 4th edition of Kaduna International Film Festival held at Kaduna city, Nigeria which witnessed the presence of some professionals in the creative industry from diverse parts of the world. The Founder of Kaduna International film festival, Israel Audu says the aim is to grow the creative sector in Northern Nigeria and support the young talents so that they can be able to project themselves to the world.

He noted that the festival was put together to inspire, motivate and help the teeming youths to identify their hidden talents and offer them an opportunity to build a career in film production.

“We started the festival in 2018, we wanted to see to the development of the Northern part of the country in terms of creativity, we lacked film festival, we lacked avenue to interact with one another to see how we can promote one another without having to go to Lagos, Abuja or any other part of the country,” he said.

Line of activities for the festival included: master classes, film screening, awards, tourism, seminars/workshops, panel discussions, film makers round table, movie premier and exhibitions among others.

Veteran Nigeria actor and producer, Zack Orji says Culture is everything and having cultural heritage as the theme of this year’s event is very apt.

“We are leaving in a time when it looks like we have forgotten who we are. As a people, we have forgotten we are Nigerians, we are very respectful of our elders, we are tied to our culture and traditions and we know these are the things that define us as people,” he added.

“There are so many ways, when it comes to our movies, the way we write our script, we need to do more of grass root cultural script that will project us to the world because without our script, there is no movie so it has to start with our scripts,” Audu said.

According to the organisers, the film industry can be used for the promotion of peace, hence the need for the government to invest in the industry in the face of peace eluding Nigeria.

“We need peace to live together as brothers in solidarity, we need peace for anything to happen, without peace, there can’t be any foreign direct investment in our country by outside companies, so we really need peace in Nigeria at this point in our lives,” said Orji.

The festival which had physical and online participants would be linked members of the Nigerian creative industry with their counterparts in six other countries to share experiences and learn from one another.