Chioma Ude, founder of AFRIFF, during a media briefing in Lagos said the festival with the theme, Indigenous to Global 2.0, would focus mainly on promoting and projecting indigenous content to the global audience.
She said that so far, the platform had generated 1,000 quality films to be exhibited in the course of the festival.
“This edition of the festival is important because creatives would be exposed to series of learning, cutting across filmmaking, makeup act, designers and more.
“We need to understand international policies and laws to be able to sell our indigenous content globally,” she said.
Also speaking on the previous edition, the Consul General at the United States Consulate in Lagos, Will Stevens, said, “I am grateful to be here, the festival last year was so incredible, I’m looking forward to this year’s edition.
“This is all about building Nigeria for the world, America grew based on what people see about the nation and I think it is now Nigeria’s time.
“It has been amazing supporting AFRIFF for 9 years now in a row and we are grateful for the partnership.”
In his remarks, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos Sate, expressed the state’s willingness and readiness to partner with the organisers of AFRIFF to achieve a beautiful and successful festival.
Sanwo-Olu said that the 12th edition of AFRIFF would be the biggest and boldest so far as it would be positioned to speak to the economic agenda of the state.
“We are excited to be part of this, we believe that it is when we tell our stories that we are better understood and well embraced.
“As government, we commit our resources and time to whatever that has to put the state and nation’s creative industry on the global stage.
“This is the time to work collaboratively to project our indigenous content for global acceptance.
“The creative industry is the only industry that can flog all the shortfalls that we have, an industry that knows no boundary,” he said.
Speaking on how Multichoice had been able to promote indigenous content, Busola Tejumola, Executive Head of Content West Africa Channels at MultiChoice Nigeria, said as the company celebrates its 20th anniversary, it has grown from one channel to seven.
Tejumola noted that three out of the seven channels exhibit local content in Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa languages.
“We also have MultiChoice talent factory where we engage the up-and-coming artistes in training, this is in collaboration with the Pan Atlantic University and we usually produce excellent filmmakers who can tell authentic African stories.
“We equally recognise and reward excellence through the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCA),” she said.
Femi Adebayo, a Nigerian filmmaker, said, “As a custodian and promoter of our culture, all my films are indigenous and has got global attention, we can only do our future better when we promote our local content more. We need this to take over the global film market.”
Charles Novia, a movie director, who noted that the film industry had been able to present itself as such that has no boundaries to its exploration, urged Africans to play well around their indigenous content.
