Date: 2015-05-26

Tiva Cinema Company Limited has opened a new film house in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital. The company, being sponsored by the Bank of Industry (BoI), had at its launch last week Friday, some Nollywood stars like Olumide Bakare, Bukunmi Oluwasina and Muyiwa Oladapo among others.

Located at the heart of the popular Shoprite Mall, the outfit’s Cinema Hall l was occupied by a crowd of Nollywood lovers who wanted to catch a glimpse at their stars.

Speaking with reporters, Bol’s Divisional Head for Large Enterprises, Joseph Babatunde said the bank has invested millions of Naira into the industry, adding that “the same VIVA Entertainment set a similar cinema centre in Ibadan. We have spent quite some money to support the company.”

Mr. Babatunde added that “the entertainment industry holds a lot in terms of provision of employment. You will recall, the 2013 rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the creative industry contributed about 1.6 percent (six million Dollars). That means the industry holds a lot of potentials. Scores of youths who come out of the university with a lot of talents can exercise themselves through the promotion of the creative industry.

“For us in the Bank of Industry, we have made adequate arrangement to support the creative industry. For instance, we support this in Ilorin. There are youths who are working there; you remember in those days the cinema culture was a great privilege.

“What we are trying to do is to bring back that same cultural values and by bringing them back we believe that a lot of youths will be employed. So, the creative industry is the door for the youths. The industry holds a lot of potential to take a lot of youths out of the streets and for us in Bol, we are ready to provide funding so that in movie production and cinema, all these age-long cultural values can be brought back. So it is not just all about work, people can mix recreation with work.”

The banker also said that the movie industry has a lot of challenges bedeviling it in Nigeria.

According to him, “It is not only funding that is the key issue with the creative industry in Nigeria – a major issue is that of distribution. Without effective distribution, there is no way you can make your money back.

This cinema platform is a major outlet for the purpose of distributing movies. Apart from the fact that we have standard studios; a lot of filmmakers go to South Africa, Canada and United States of America to shoot their films, which is not good enough for the industry.

“So we still need a lot of investment in standard studios so that our film producers can shoot their films locally, coupled with the cinema centers coming. For us in the Bank of Industry, we have financed about four cinema outlets and before the end of this year we will add another 25 or thereabout across the nation.”

Chief Bakare said that film producers in the country have been able to improve the standard and content of Nigerian movies technically.

He added that “the development can help the Nigerian movies as we are creating jobs; bringing new artistes. We want the old ones to go and rest, but I am still very relevant.

“What I want you to know is that there is a cinema house in Ilorin. So you can come here and watch Nollywood films. Today we are starting with five movies.

For Oluwasina, the producer of Ayomi, “this is a form of bringing movies to the cinema in a different and dynamic form. We want everybody to enjoy them.”