Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital City, will from 30th-31st October, 2017, host the maiden edition of the Africa International Movie Summit (AFRIMS 2017), with the theme: “African Cinema – Now that the Digital Switchover is Here”, at the National Merit House, Maitama.

AFRIMS 2017, organised by Sixt-Media Lane Consult Ltd, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, is a forum to galvanise African motion picture practitioners on emerging apps and technologies, which is expected to focus on the leverage inherent in the digital switchover in the movie industry and how it can be harnessed for content creation (that is proactive, entrepreneurial, creative and essentially audience driven) for a content-platform mix that is sufficiently dynamic to allow for ease of migration.

A statement by Prince Sixtus Opara, the CEO of AFRIMS, states that the Summit is aimed at bringing together, content creators with emerging technology and apps to point to the new direction for the Nigerian film industry, in the advent of digitisation, stressing that especially now that African cinema is becoming increasingly synonymous with Nollywood, the country’s film industry has not only created the template for the African story but has since become the mirror through which African cinema is perceived.

The statement further states that with the African cinema audience being weaned on the opulent illusion of Hollywood, the glitz and spectacle of Bollywood, and Televisa’s penchant for turning the realities of everyday life into pro-filmic materials, it will be easier for African filmmakers to play on their audience’s familiar turf by turning the American or Indian films and even the Mexican soaps into a formula of sorts that creates the content that can find no resonance in their culture.

According to him, Nollywood’s ranking as the 2nd largest film industry in the world shows that it has potentials for growth, which had featured prominently in the rebasing of the national economy with only one project creating as many as 32 opportunities for employment generation in the country.

Apart from the objectives of interfacing content creators with emerging technology and emerging content apps, AFRIMS 2017 sets out to extend borders of networking, mentoring and business platforms in a technologically responsive industry; re-orientate African cinema to the four vectors of the cinema: the artistic, the entrepreneurial, the ethical and the technological; reposition African cinema as a response to the present and the strategy to shape the future; and also to explore the potential of African cinema as a tool for cultural diplomacy.

The summit has as sub-themes: content creation, funding resources, marketing resources, training resources, piracy, gate keeping-censorship-classification, audience mores versus production values, and continental associations, film festivals and reward schemes.

Already, leading authorities and professionals in the film industry in Nigeria are expected to present thought-provoking papers on the above-mentioned topics to include: Professor Hyginus Ekwuazi, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu, Professor Femi Shaka, Professor Marcel Okhakhu, Professor Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh, Professor Emmanuel Dandaura, and Professor Kwaghkondo Agber.

Others are the Executive Secretary, National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Associate Professor Barclays Ayakoroma; the Director General, Centre for Black and African Arts & Civilisation (CBAAC), Dr. Ferdinand Anikwe; Dr. Chika Onu, Dr. Sam Dede, Dr. Kawu Modibo, Dr. Paddy Njoku, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, Dr. Modibbo Kawu and Mr. Ini Akpabio, among others.

Caleb Nor
NICO, Abuja-FCT