To borrow a Nigerian cliché, I want to say the truth and let the devil be ashamed: Obi Emelonye is a fantastic film maker. Not only that, back to back, he has also been cooking and feeding us with sumptuous and delicious films. Don’t know whether you’ve seen The Mirror Boy, Last Flight To Abuja and his most recent work, Onye Ozi (The Messenger)? The only adjective that can succinctly describe the three works is high-grade. The works are in a class and world of their own.
Mr. Emelonye, equally an ex-professional footballer and a solicitor in the United Kingdom, stopped by in our office recently. And for about two hours, YES INTERNATIONAL! Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, AZUH ARINZE, got him to grant this awesome interview which is sure to ceaselessly delight you. Come with them…
What’s new with Obi Emelonye?
The film industry is a continuum. Unfortunately, it’s not like music where you can build a career based on one song. So, you have to constantly make good works. And like masquerades, you don’t watch it from one place – you have to ‘bughariala’ the masquerade (that is, take it from one place to another). So, after the success – critical and commercial – of the last two films: The Mirror Boy and Last Flight To Abuja, I took a step back and said it might make sense to go back to my roots and take Nollywood back to its origins. So, I decided to make an Igbo film. And actually, the motivation for that came from being at the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards in March last year where my earlier film, The Mirror Boy had a lot of nominations and ended up winning some. So, I was at the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards and in spite of winning Best Film and Best Script with The Mirror Boy, I felt that there was something missing; there was a Yoruba category award, there was a Swahili category award, there was an Hausa category award, but there was no Igbo category award. I said why? A large percentage of film makers in this country are actually Igbo, but we decided to tell our stories in English and disenfranchised our people in terms of having narratives in our native language. So, I said before the year runs out, I’m going to do a film in Igbo. So, I went back to London and a script that I had written in English, I converted it to Igbo and I didn’t just make it in Igbo, I got some white people to speak the language and I think the result has been hilarious.
The title of the film is Onye Ozi, The Messenger. What is the film all about?
Onye Ozi is a comedy, set in London and stars Okey Bakassi, who plays Metumaribe Onuigbo, who arrives fresh from Nigeria with high expectations and high dreams and tries to battle the reality of being in London as a freshly relocated immigrant. But as he’s coming to terms with the battles, little social dramas with his new wife also happen. His wife’s friends organize a welcome party for him and at that party, a white man is chased in and shot. While everybody runs for their lives, Metumaribe Nwa Onuigbo, being the Nigerian that he is, being the nice Igbo man that he is, decides to go and help the dying man and just before the man breathes his last, the man gives him an envelop and a bunch of key and elicits a promise from him to do as the envelop says. To cut a long story short, he sends the envelop to the name written on it and feels that it’s ended. But from that point, he became involved and no matter how hard or how fast he ran, his life was not gonna be the same until he delivered the message that will change his life and those of the people around him.
There’s The Mirror Boy, Last Flight To Abuja and now Onye Ozi, The Messenger. Other than the fact that the last one was done in Igbo, what else distinguishes it from the others?
It’s just like in writing – there’s a bit of you in every piece of writing that you do. There’s a little bit of Obi Emelonye in all my works, but this one has a certain uniqueness. The Mirror Boy started this whole madness; it took me to this level where I am now in the top echelon of film makers in Nigeria; even in Africa. And from that, we went to Last Flight To Abuja and flirted with aviation and disaster; the fleet, the glamour and unfortunately the crashes in the aviation industry and the film, because of the DANA air disaster, became a very important film. Not just as a piece of work, but as a piece of what I call the longest lasting legacy for the lives of those people who were so needlessly wasted in those crashes. Onye Ozi is unique in the sense that even though there is what I call eclectic show making becoming the norm in world cinema, where there are no genre divisions – the writer and the director are not restricted by the boundaries to say oh, this is comedy, let’s not do that. There’s a completeness, a compositeness of the stories that we tell these days so that you have various elements in it. But this one, in terms of pigeonholing, we call a comedy. It’s principally aimed at making people laugh, making people relax and be entertained. So, in a way, the comedy element distinguishes it from the rest. But in addition to that, I will say that it’s a combination of all the skills, all the experiences, all the contacts that I’ve made as a film maker that came together in this project. So, even though the budget for making it is small, it has ambitions that are more than the sum of the budget that was used to make it. We shot with helicopters to create the kind of aerial photography that takes the production values of the project to a different level, in spite of the low budget. We got white people to speak Igbo language and when I say speak, I don’t mean one word and phrases; they actually had conversations in Igbo language. And that I think distinguishes it from my previous films and indeed any other Nigerian film in vernacular.
Most people attain success, but find it difficult to sustain. Where do you think they normally get it wrong?
I think people work very hard to attain success, to get to the top of their game and then they stop working and then they start feeling that they are champions and they stop making the effort of the contender. But for me, I never take myself too seriously; I consider myself a contender, I know that there are better film makers; I am a small film maker and I have to work extra hard, I have to be ambitious, I have to be dedicated, I have to be bold to take on the big boys. So, it is that mindset that constantly puts me on guard to say you know what, I haven’t arrived yet. You never arrive in this industry; there is always a journey to be made and it is that continuum that you have to focus on, that makes you want to strive to see each development that you make, that each film represents an organic development and that I would say is the key. I never feel like a champion, I’m always a contender.
What makes a good film maker?
A good film maker is a wonderful story teller, using pictures and sounds. That’s essentially who a film maker is. We are story tellers; we are like a story teller in a village square who gathers children around and tells them stories about the tortoise and the hare. That is essentially what we do. But we have the advantage of having access to technology to be able to replicate this story and affect people in such a way that the village story teller could not possibly have imagined. So, a good film maker is somebody who tells a good story from the heart, who gets his crew members, his actors, his actresses, his camera men, his behind the scene people to work collaboratively towards attaining a good picture, which essentially tells the story to its best ability. That’s what a good film maker is – somebody who can manipulate the ecosystem of his production to achieve the best possible result. It’s not something that you find the ingredients and it will automatically become good. There are variations and factors about it that are uncertain. You don’t know which one is going to work, but the more of certain ingredients you have in a film, the more of a chance it stands to be successful…
What are some of these ingredients that are necessary to sell a film?
First of all, the story. You have to tell a story, not just any story. You have to tell a story that people will relate to. For argument sake, Last Flight To Abuja. I told a story about aviation and a freak occurrence happened to make it relevant. You know, I call it creative brinkmanship, where you operate on the edges of the story – slightly more provocative, slightly controversial, slightly edgy and when you do that and you are not playing safe in the middle, you find that you have something, you have a chance, a better chance of connecting with people in such a way that the person who’s playing safe in the middle will not. So, I made a film that hasn’t been done before in African cinema about aviation safety, about plane crashes and a freak occurrence 5 days before made the film an important film. I got interviewed on CNN and African Voices, which I will say is the height of my PR so far. I don’t think there are many other places to go after that any way! It was great. And it all came from playing on the brinks – what I call once again, creative brinkmanship. So, one of them is to have a good story that takes risks, that is slightly provocative, that is out of the box; out of the box thinking. The other element is to act it well, because the film industry anywhere in the world is a star – driven industry. The fact that people would pay Leonardo di Caprio $50 million to act in a film says that he’s bringing something to do table. Indians, Americans, Canadians, Australians – it’s a star-driven industry. The more stars you have in a film, the more likelihood or the more chances it has to succeed. And then, the making of the film, the cinematography, the direction, the acting; all of those things. But it’s very difficult. Like I said, if I had the formula for making successful films, I will bottle it and I will become rich. I will stop making films and sell the formula. It is one of those things that you really have to do to find out and in doing it, you are learning. So, from Last Flight To Abuja, I’ve learnt things that I never knew in special effects and now in my subsequent films, I’m bringing to bare that experience and they would get better and better. So, without doing, you can never learn. So, it’s something that you have to do and hope that it works.
What do you normally consider before agreeing to work on a script?
Story! Story!! And to give you an instance, I get propositions everyday online by people who think that I make certain types of film and when they have certain ideas, they pitch those ideas to me and you find that the people jumble up a bunch of Nollywood and Hollywood films they’ve watched and they propose them as their story and I say look, this story that you are telling has been told in that film, that film…You’ve taken this element and that element and you fused them together. It sounds funky in your head, but it’s been done several times. There’s no complete originality now because every story, virtually all, has been told; it’s about the treatment and take that makes it unique. So, it is finding the story that will click. Because people watch films as an escape. If they want to see real life, they will stop at Oshodi bus stop and watch people; they will see a fight there, they will see armed robbery there, they will see all sorts of human elements and human behaviours there. But when they sit at home to watch a film, they want to escape into a world that is not theirs, a world that is not like the one they have and it is providing that escape that a story is supposed to do. So, if a story fails in providing the escape and presents a very ordinary world of the type that people see everyday, then it doesn’t have the excitement about it. So, it’s about telling stories about even ghosts, telling stories about things that happen that are beyond our control – spiritual beings. That’s what makes story telling exciting, that’s the kind of stories that we relate to as Africans because we are very spiritual people – and I’m not saying this in a religions sense. But our connection with the Supreme Being, whatever religion it is, is profound. And more than you can find anywhere in the world. So, it is finding stories that connect spiritually with people. Just for argument sake – a film like Ije. It’s a beautiful film, but it had elements in it that people can relate to. People that want to go to America, they will see what America looks like. Films like Anchor Baby. It actually was almost didactic in the sense that it taught people certain things about sentiments in America. A film like The Mirror Boy – it dealt with the issue of identity and how to find yourself sometimes, you have to be lost. Because this boy goes missing and he ends up finding himself. So, it is finding a story that has a soul. It’s not just a story that is flashy, it’s a story that has a soul, that people can connect and latch on to and the good thing about telling a wonderful story is that when you do, people can learn from it what they wish, depending on their own personal circumstances. Some people will see inspiration to go and do something, some other people will see comfort in the way they’ve found themselves and the way things are working in their lives. So, a good story is one that presents a cosmos that people can take from it, whatever it is that they see fit.
What do you like most about being a film maker?
Being able to express myself, being able to see an idea that I conceived on my bed go through a metamorphosis of script, production and reality. And to sit as part of the audience in the theatre and watch people watch it and react to the story; laugh when I expect them to laugh and frown when I expect them to frown, keep quiet when I expect them to keep quiet. It is to see people go on that journey with you. That is the most fulfilling thing about film making.
What don’t you like about being a film maker?
The nature of the financing and the sporadic nature of the revenue. If I was in Hollywood, I will be rolling in money. But the way our industry is right now, it’s at that stage where you try to break new grounds, try to seek and grab because it won’t be given willingly – grab international acceptance. And to do that, we need to make films that are more expensive than the structures that we have in place can support. So, we have to take a leap of faith to say you know what, if we continue to make these little films for ourselves, self-contained and myopically-designed films, we will end up being where we are. For us to be taken seriously as a veritable film industry, we need to open up a little bit; open up our way of thinking, open up our wallets to spend the kind of money that would attract international recognition and international attention and we are doing that. You will find that because we go on this leap of faith and because there’s an element of pioneer advantage, there’s also an element of being the bulldozer and the grader and you are making the way for yourself. There’s a route that you have to take to make that happen. But it is the lack of structure that exists in the industry right now which forces people like us to become writer, director, producer, agent, marketer, distributor, spokesperson and seller (Laughing) on the streets. Because that’s the only way you can do it right now. But it’s about to get better and I’m very excited about the future of Nollywood.
What is the greatest thing that film making has done for you?
When I was young, my dad would always say that he wants to have riches with honour and I never understood it. Because I saw a bunch of people who were his contemporaries who were richer, but anonymous. But he was not that rich, yet he had the recognition that if I drop my name in certain places and say I am an Emelonye, people will shake my hand and say your dad was a great man. And that’s the kind of thing I see myself doing now. It’s being able to attain a kind of financial success which guarantees food on the table, pays the bills, but also additionally, to have a brand that people will look up to. I get some emails and I feel like crying and I save them up for when I’m down. Because when I’m down, those emails pick me up big time, because they are really inspirational. Some people will say you touched me in a particular way, you made me believe in the industry, you made me want to watch Nigerians films again. All those positive things that people send my way, they are the reason that I look back and say you know what, let me go the extra mile to do something that people will appreciate. Because that is the joy that we get from the industry and I’m getting a lot of it now.
What hasn’t the film industry done for you?
It hasn’t bought me a mansion in Malibu yet. Like I said, the industry is at a stage now where we are taking baby steps, but we are getting to the point where every film maker of a certain caliber will be a millionaire in Dollars. It’s happening, it’s around the corner. In fact, you don’t need an outside exposure of films; Nigeria alone, a country of over 160 million people, if one percent of that population patronizes a film on any platform, you are talking about millions here. So, it is the possibilities in the industry that excite people like me and I take a long term view of things. That was the bane of the old Nollywood where they were very myopic in the planning of the industry; they wanted to do it now, sell it tomorrow and jettison it and go to the next one. But if you see the way the industry has evolved; now people are paying more attention to the factors of production, more people are paying attention to getting into, even if it’s just the Diasporan market alone; not even the international market. Just our people living abroad. To break into that market, they are taking time in marketing the films and the films are yielding results now.
Do you think you would have succeeded this much if you had not relocated to the UK?
I was speaking to a friend a few days ago in London and I said I’ve spent 20 years in the UK and I feel that I’ve wasted my best years in London and the man said no, no, no…Never see it that way. I went to London as a 26-year-old boy and I’ve returned to Nigeria as a 46-year-old man. In that time, I’ve taken in quite a lot; some of which have helped me to become who I am today. But at the same time, in trying to adjust to a new culture, in trying to adjust to a new reality of living in a country, I have been fundamentally slowed down. But in life, you don’t look back and say I wish I had. No! You look forward and say this is where I am now, I’m going to make it work. And that’s what I’ve done. I’ve taken the experience of London; I have got a training, I’ve got a citizenship of the world that I can go where I please, I’ve got the experience of being exposed to this wonderful cosmopolitan culture for 20 years. All I’m going to do now is take it, roll it up and throw it into everything I do, so that there is an internationalness, there is a certain world view that you see in my projects; there’s a certain completeness in the perspective that I have of things and that cannot be bought. That, I will not have, if I had stayed in Nigeria. But has London slowed me down? Yes, it has and I’ve got a chance to catch up. I do!
As a film maker, what is that singular thing that stands Obi Emelonye out?
I will say that everything I have goes into everything I do. I just mentioned that I spent 20 years in London; that I played professional football for Rangers and Julius Berger as a young man; that I am a lawyer, a trained solicitor in the UK; that I am a husband and a father. I come from a family of academics and my twin brother is very high up in the UN system in Kenya. All of those things go into what I do. So, instead of telling a story from the perspective of somebody who has lived in the village all his life and went to Onitsha to trade, I tell it from the point of view, from a perspective that is better; more embracing. So, I see everything, I see the entire picture. So, the chequered history that I have in terms of my education and my experience go into everything I do. I take a very passionate view of what I do; I throw passion and soul and sweat and tears into everything that I do. I hate half measures, I am a perfectionist, even though I know when to stop seeking perfection because you will never find it. It’s the search of that perfection that gets you to the level where you transcend mediocrity and I think the search for perfection and the infusion of everything that I know and everything that I am into make me stand out.
You talked about your family earlier. Can we meet them?
Yes, I come from a particularly large family. My dad was an executive many years ago – in 40s and in 50s and went to London and studied then with my mom. They came back, settled in Nigeria. In my family, we are all graduates. About 10 of us. A polygamous family like that… That’s my large family. I am part of a set of twins. My twin brother is a lawyer too, but he’s gone into international civil service. He works for the United Nations as a senior human rights adviser in Kenya. We all have families, but my immediate family – I’m married to a wonderful, supportive woman called Amaka and she’s from Enugu State. We got married in 2002 and we are blessed with three children – 2 boys and 1 girl. Dikachi, the first boy and the first child; Daluchi, the last boy, and in – between them, I have a daughter who is called Dirichi. So, I’m blessed. I have virtually everything that a man would want. Although, like Oliver Twist, I’m asking for more.
What is the biggest mistake that most film makers make?
The biggest mistake I will say that particularly young film makers make is to wait for perfection; to think that their first job is gonna win an Oscar; to forget that there is pride in growth, that there is something called growth, that you have to augument. Start from humble beginnings in a small office and grow to a big complex. They are in a hurry to fly. They want to make the perfect film, forgetting that it is easier, like we said earlier, to get to the top, but it’s staying there that is the problem. And the longer it takes you get there, the better. But if you fly to the top, you have a little crisis, you can’t sustain it, because you haven’t gone through the ropes to learn the surviving skills that you need to survive at the very top. So, the biggest mistake they make is to wait for perfection; that’s to wait for things to be perfect. To have the perfect budget, to have the perfect cast. I say do something, make something. Nollywood started from home video; a vernacular film that was very poorly made, that told the story from the heart and that has given birth to what we are doing today. Without that small film, there will be no Nollywood today. But what we’ve now done is that we’ve spread around the world what I call digital democracy, where people can tell their own stories with small cameras. Most mobile phone cameras can tell a story that can be watched in any cinema these days. So, the mistake they make is wanting everything to be perfect. It will never be perfect. You have to at some point bite the bullet and do something. And as you learn from that, you move on to the next one. A lot of people ask me: Is Mirror Boy your first film? No! I shot my first film in 1999 and since then there’s been a big difference. I was the writer, producer, director, makeup artist, costumier, actor, everything. That was the spirit in me to become a film maker. So, you need to get your hands dirty, not to sit back and call shots and say action. The best part of the job is to be able to get people together, to manage them to be able to tell the story. But our journey has been a gradual and consistent one.
Who is that singular person that you admire the most in film making and why?
First of all, I will name the godfathers of Nollywood. The people that started what we are doing today. Whenever I can, I give them kudos, because without them, I will still be making stage plays in London, thinking that there’s something to be made out of it. Because there isn’t. So, I give them a big up – the godfathers of Nollywood; the people that started what we are doing today. It was poor, it was not qualitative, but they provided the foundation for what we are today. Having said that; internationally, I like James Cameron. James Cameron is not a particularly wonderful film maker, but he’s a great film maker. A great commercial film maker. This guy came with Terminator, broke the ceiling of the highest grossing film; Titanic, Avator. Each time, he takes his time and he comes with great films. So, for that reason alone, for the sheer success that he drives with his works, I doff my hat for the man. I was in love with Spielberg (Steven) up until recently when he started making films that refuse to connect with me the way his earlier films connected. But the man of the moment, the man that I think has the mantle as the best film maker, as far as I’m concerned in the world today, is the man called Christopher Nolan. He’s a British guy who is making films in America. He made Insomnia, he made the Bat Man movies. He’s a very imaginative guy. You see, you find some film makers, they are either camera people who are concentrating on the shots or they are actors/film makers/directors who are concentrating on becoming the best directors. But once in a while you come across a director who has everything – he sees the cameras, he sees the actors and he gets them to fuse together in one seamless piece of work that makes it really, really irresistible and Christopher Nolan is one of them. So, I aspire to be a small black version of Christopher Nolan and to tell stories that connect with people on a level that is unprecedented.
NB: First published January 2014