Nigeria Content Online

The African
Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and the Lufodo Academy of Performing
Arts (LAPA) recently held a press conference for the upcoming Women in
Film Forum. The forum, scheduled for June 16 and 17, is themed ‘Women
and the Dynamics of Representation.’

According to a
statement released by the Fund, “This activity is… a crucial
component of AWDF’s Popular Culture project, which is supported by the
MDG3 Fund.”

Speaking at the
press conference, Executive Director of the AWDF, Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi,
said the involvement of the grant-making body was to see “how we can
engage more with practitioners in popular culture.”

Adeleye-Fayemi
said what little many people abroad know about Nigeria is courtesy the
indigenous film industry. But matters have arisen over the portrayal of
women in many of these films. In this regard, AWDF and LAPA convened
the forum in the hope that there will be “more affirming images of
women.”

What a woman can do…

Corroborating this
view, renowned Nollywood actress and LAPA director of Studies, Joke
Silva, told of a film she featured in where none of the female
characters was positive. The script was written by a woman, who argued
that it was a portrayal of how women are and what people wanted to see.

Supporting Silva’s
claim, Adeleye-Fayemi said in selecting women-friendly films that would
be screened at the forum, she discovered that “films produced by men
scored the highest in terms of good films portraying women in good
light.”

Concerning the
forum, Silva said industry practitioners, academicians and civil
society organisations will be amongst those taking part in the
conversations surrounding the stereotypical role of wicked women in
Nigerian films.

“Nollywood is
extremely powerful. If there’s any message you want to put out there,
you need to involve Nollywood,” the actress said.

Acclaimed filmmaker, Tunde Kelani said, “It’s not for nothing that man’s first language is termed ‘mother tongue.’”

Kelani said in
making his films, he took the trouble to make sure women are
well-represented in his films. ‘Arugba’, ‘Abeni’, ‘Thunderbolt’, and
‘Campus Queen’ are some of his films in which women have played
prominent and positive roles.

He called the
proposed forum, “a laudable initiative.” The responsibility to ensure
that women were portrayed in a positive light in Nollywood, he however
said, rested mostly with women.

Strength of a woman

“The greatest
problem for us women is that we look at ourselves the way men see us,”
said Nollywood actress Bimbo Akintola, pointing out that at the end of
the day, “Actresses just want to make money.”

The trained
theatre artist, who has starred in movies like ‘Out of Bounds’ and
‘Dangerous Twins,’ said, “I got tired of terrible scripts, awful
directors, which is why I went behind the scenes and started producing.

“We don’t really
think about the power we have as actresses and what we are portraying.
Maybe this forum would help attend to that,” she said.

Silva, who said
she once took the roles of long-suffering women in order to make a
living, listed the kind of roles she would like to see in Nollywood.
“Our flaws are not our totality,” she said while naming some foreign
actresses like Cate Blanchett and Judy Dench, who had played the role
of Elizabeth I, a flawed, yet formidable and inspiring female character.

“Even when you
have a negative role, you can counterbalance with a positive female,”
Silva said referring to her role in AMBO IV movie, ‘The Child,’ where
she plays a controlling power-hungry mother, who is pitted against her
son’s younger, more reserved and understanding love interest.

Director of the
hit film ‘Guilty Pleasures,’ Emem Isong described herself as being very
particular about showing the strength of women in her films. “I think
Nigerian women are really strong,” she said.

Re-writing ‘Nollywomen’

Responding to a
suggestion that a workshop be done during the forum to orientate
scriptwriters on how to portray inspiring female characters,
Adeleye-Fayemi said organising such capacity-building sessions will be
looked at in the months following the forum.

She said her
organisation could share stories with filmmakers that would give a
plausible edge to the movies and in turn ensure that the films have
better commercial value. “(These stories) need to be told with a
certain nuance and empathy,” she suggested.

“One of the best
ways to transform any nation is through the media. The film industry is
a very important tool in changing the nation,” Silva concurred.

Expected at the
Women in Film Forum are prominent African filmmakers, thinkers and
writers, including academic Abena Busia (sister to actress Akosua Busia
of ‘The Color Purple’ fame), Tunde Kelani, Bunmi Oyinsan, Amaka Igwe,
Emem Isong, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Akin Omotoso. They are expected to
“start a gender dialogue on how we can reclaim popular culture to
promote gender equality and women’s empowerment,” said the AWDF’s
Executive Director, Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi.

The Women in Film Forum takes place at The Colonnades Hotel in Ikoyi, Lagos, on June 16 and 17, 2010.