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Director, Mak
‘Kusare, became a celebrity of sorts in 2006 when his debut feature,
’90 Degrees’ won three awards at the Zuma Film Festival in Abuja. The
film won the Best Director, Best First Film/Video of a Director and
Best Feature Film awards.

But five years
after its premiere, the movie about a young man’s quest to seek new
pastures in the US, has not been seen outside of festivals.

Priceless art

‘90 Degrees’ is
still very much there,” the 32-year-old offers on why he is still
holding on to the film. “Initially, I was very eager to get it out but
then I didn’t meet the kind of marketer I would love to market it. ‘90
Degrees’ is a project and the idea behind it was to shoot and market
differently. We pushed the envelope a bit in production style, quality
and content. The total packaging was completely different from what you
have in Nigeria at that time.

“We also didn’t
want to go straight to video and DVD. Unfortunately, it was still
difficult for places like Silverbird to accept Nigerian films.
Silverbird and NuMetro are the cinema houses around and they have a
different view about Nigerian films ;that people will rather buy a
Nigerian CD for N250 than watching it with N1,500 at the cinema. In the
process I got distracted by other things. While all this was going on
Silverbird restructured and were taking Nigerian films depending on the
quality. Nu Metro which had agreed to screen ‘90 Degrees’ closed shop
in Nigeria. I was still working with the BBC then and by the time I
finished, I looked at it and saw I have grown more than that. I feel it
is not a true representation of who I am now as an artist.

“Then the pricing.
What people were ready to offer was the general market price and I
thought our art was more than that. I didn’t see it as a general
commodity and besides, I knew what we had invested. It wasn’t huge
money but I knew the value of what we had invested. DSTV made their
offer as well but I wasn’t impressed. They offered something pretty
okay compared to what they offer others for Nigerian movies, but I’ve
been reluctant. In fact, I’m considering giving it out for educational
purposes.”

Collective effort

‘Kusare also
reveals the secret of how he succeeded in shooting ’90 Degrees’ with
just N250, 000. “In fact, I started with N20,000. Luckily for me I was
fresh from school, in fact still partially in school, and I had my
colleagues working with me. I did not pay anybody cash in terms of
payment fees. It was a labour of love and I was able to get some
equipment from the Nigerian Film Corporation and others. That is the
reason I wasn’t too happy the film won in categories it did, I would
have loved to see Best Actor, Best Actress etc. It would have made me
feel better because it will be a sort of compensation for the guys for
their hard work. It’s the work of everybody. The creation of a film is
pretty much like painting but this time around, everybody involved
holds the brush; they all struggle to make a perfect stroke.

“Coming out with
‘90 Degrees’ was a break from the norm, we wanted to get a completely
different kind of story. Then art is of essence. It’s an art form and
we must see it through. Film as an art form means using your shots as a
unit of construction as opposed to using the scene as your unit of
construction; every individual shot in your movie adds up to the whole.
I’m happy people are coming to realise that the film medium is much
more than what people used to think. It is a medium of expression, art.
You have to be expressive with it and you have to push the envelope
because stories are almost all told. What is new is how you present it.
You constantly look for new ways to tell a story and that’s what I did
with 90 Degrees.”

‘Kusare, one of
the four directors of the rested BBC’s ‘Wetin Dey’, has since moved on
to produce TV series including ‘David’s Fall’ and TV commercials. He is
also director of the yet- to- be released ‘Comrades’.

Golden touch

Saying ‘Kusare has
a Midas touch is an understatement. ‘Champions of Our Time’, the latest
project he worked on for Chidi Nwokeabia and Emeka Enyiocha has started
garnering awards. It won the Best Nigerian Feature Award at the 2010
Abuja International Film Festival and the Golden Mboni Award for Best
Children Film at the Lola Kenya Screen Audiovisual Media Festival in
Kenya. Making the movie, however, wasn’t a piece of cake for the young
director who had previously never worked with core Nollywood producers.

“For the first
time I was getting involved with the real workings of Nollywood and
their mentality – our mentality, as it were. The Nollywood style of you
don’t make too much fuss about things, it’s just pointing the camera
and shoot. The producers invested so much because once I was called; I
said we are going to get this kind of light and camera. This is the
format we will be shooting on and they accepted. To be fair to them,
they got all of those things but once the chips were down and we were
on set, they wanted things to move fast.

“We had serious
issues on the set; I had to bend a lot and it was painful. They also
had to bend; it was painful to both of us. I was coming from a
different background. The way people in the industry practice their
art; that is the most painful part; their attitude to work, their
production values. Sometimes, I look back and wondered how I
compromised on those things but I did it for the work to go on. The
next time we are working together we will know ourselves better.”

Pleasant surprise

His regrets at
compromising on the set of the movie presently showing at the cinemas
has been somewhat assuaged by the awards rolling in.

“I was shocked
because I didn’t expect them to start coming soon. I got distracted
along the line with ‘David’s Fall’ while I was in post production for
‘Champions of Our Time’. I did the first three cuts and from that time
I started giving notes to the editor who also edited ‘90 Degrees’. I
thought I was in the process of making a film, then I started receiving
awards. I think one reason we are getting awards is the subject matter.
For a change, we are dealing with something that has not been common in
Nigeria’s cinema which is what I’ve always wanted and one of the
reasons why I accepted the project. I love new stories, the ones that
are different from those we have been telling. There are other stories
that we can tell that are moving; stories of ordinary people doing
extraordinary things. I’m happy for the producers because the intention
has been achieved; they wanted an award winning movie.”

Is he fully part of Nollywood now?

“Whether I like it or not, whenever I go out there and I say I’m a
Nigerian filmmaker, you are called a Nollywood filmmaker. If Nollywood
means the Nigerian film industry, then I’m part of Nollywood. To that
extent, yes, I’m Nollywood. But when it comes to the quality of work
that has been associated with Nollywood, no I’m not. What Nollywood is
doing now is good, we are seeing new talents and they are improving the
standard. I’m not Nollywood for mediocrity; I’m Nollywood because
Nollywood stands for the Nigerian film industry.” Despite his past
experience, ‘Kusare has not shut the door on collaborations with
Nollywood producers. “I think there is a lot we can learn from each
other. I have never been averse to getting things done quickly but if
I’m going to do that at the expense of quality, then I don’t want to.”
‘Kusare who has a new project, discloses that, “it’s a feature length
movie and hopefully by the end of this year, next year, it should hit
the screen. We are also developing TV programmes, in partnership with a
couple of others. I’m also working on the adaptation of a Nigerian
comic strip, ‘Nollywood Finest’.