Kunle Afolayan’s popular film, The
Figurine (Araromire) is returning to the limelight five years after making
waves, winning five awards including the best film category at the prestigious
African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) and travelling far and near at Film
festival circuits.
The film’s story is now being told in
a scholarly book titled Auteuring
Nollywood: Critical Perspectives on THE FIGURINE which will be unveiled at a
major ceremony on Thursday July 31, 2014 at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.
According to a press release from
Relentless Media, the outfit coordinating the book unveiling and launching in
conjunction with Golden Effects Services, the ceremony will witness a rich
array of Nollywood stars, allied film professionals, academics, top government
functionaries, captains of industry and members of the diplomatic corps.
“Former Minister of National Planning
and a respected patriarch of the arts, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi, OFR will chair
the ceremony that is designed to be one of Nollywood’s greatest moments outside
movie location.”
The book, a collection of scholarly
essays, is the first of its kind devoted to the work of a single Nigerian film
director. It interrogates the thematic focus and cinematic style employed in The Figurine, while also using that
singular work to engage the new trends in the new Nigerian cinema popularly
referred to as Nollywood.
Edited by Dr. Adeshina Afolayan of the
Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, the book’s Foreword was written
by Prof. Jonathan Haynes of the Long Island University, USA and a notably
scholar on Nollywood.
Contributors to the 455-page book
include Dr. Sola Osofisan, Dr. Dele Layiwola, Dr. Chukwuma Okoye, Jane
Thorburn, Matthew H. Brown, Gideon Tanimonure, A.G.A Bello, Foluke Ogunleye and
Prof. Hyginus Ekwuazi. An ‘Afterword’ on “Neo-Nollywood
and its Other” by the prolific Scholar, Dr. Onookome Okome, is also
provided in the book in addition to series of interviews with key actors and
technicians that featured in the film.
“This is a novelty”, says Kunle
Afolayan, who has since shot two other well-acclaimed films – Phone
Swap and October 1 (whose premiere is slated for October 1, 2014 in
Lagos). “We have always said we should tell our stories. But I believe it goes
beyond mere rhetorics and images on the screen. Releasing one’s movie to scholarly
interrogation like this is one of the next levels for our film industry to
climb and I’m excited that this is already happening through my film”, he
added.
The book has been receiving critical
acclaims already. According to Dr. Nduka Otiono, former Secretary General of Association
of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and a lecturer at the Institute of African Studies,
Carlton University, Ottawa, Canada “this book is seminal in its inauguration of
a new chapter in the study of Nigeria’s phenomenal contribution to global film
culture … it makes a strong case for a more in-depth artistic and critical
approach to the study of Nollywood that triangulates around orality”.
Similarly, Mr. Steve Ayorinde,
renowned journalist/film Critic and helmsman of Relentless Media, applauds the
arrival of Auteuring Nollywood “at a
time that the Nigerian film industry is opening up to the Academy Awards and is
also being duly acknowledged as a major contributor to the Nigerian economy”.
The book, he added, fulfils two roles - championing a new and positive
development in cinematic and literary studies in Nigeria by focusing exclusively
on the work of a single cineaste while also expanding the narrative around a
film industry that continues to announce its arrival on the global scene in a
spectacular way.
To Dr. Akin Adesokan of the Indiana
University, Bloomington, USA, the book is “comprehensive and informed about its
subject and in unexpected ways gives solidity to the characterization of
Nollywood as ‘telling our own stories’”.
The reviewers that will do justice to
the intellectual content in the book are Mr. Emeka Mba, the Director General of
the National Broadcasting Commission and Dr. Ikechukwu Obiaya, who is the
Director of Nollywood Study Centre, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos.
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