Award-winning Nigerian filmmaker Niyi Akinmolayan says that adequate funding is essential to telling authentic African stories and enabling Nollywood to compete on a global stage.
The founder of Anthill Studios said African filmmakers face challenges in retaining control over their narratives when productions are financed by foreign investors.
“Well, if someone is financing a production from Hollywood with millions of dollars and they are hoping to sell to an international market, they are going to rework the story to their taste,” Akinmolayan said on Channels Television’s Sunrise.
“It’s easy for us to sit and complain about things like that, but if we’re not willing to do the work and make the investment, then someone else is going to do it for us.”
He referenced the production of The Woman King and the reported adaptation of Things Fall Apart as examples of how foreign-funded investments affect African stories.
“Someone had said to me that we seem to have a challenge with telling our own authentic African stories. The Woman King is an African story, but, as you know, not many Africans played the lead roles in that particular film. I’m hearing rumours that an American is being proposed to lead the cast of Things Fall Apart,” he said.
The 43-year-old believes producing authentic African stories at scale requires more than passion or goodwill.
“To really be genuinely authentic and at scale is going to require more than just goodwill. It will require funding, structure, and distribution. Those are strong things that we haven’t quite figured out yet,” he said.
The filmmaker also pointed to changing audience expectations, noting that viewers now demand higher production quality influenced by global content.
“They don’t want an authentic Nigerian story that looks like what their parents saw in the 90s. They want it to look like Game of Thrones, or they will reject it,” he said.
“In cinemas, we know that Hollywood films don’t even need marketiNg. Nigerians will watch them. So it’s easy to say ‘Let’s be authentic,’ but the audience wants more beyond that. That’s really where the challenge is.”
The director stressed the complexities involved in filmmaking beyond just producing a script.
He described the meticulous planning and investment required to bring stories to life, including research, costumes, sets, and intellectual property rights.
“You might have a brilliant idea, but it’s going to take a while to develop. You’re not just going to hand it over to anyone to develop it. The money is not just to pay cast and crew; it is to even develop the ideas, to make them into reality,” he explained.
As a way out, he suggested more investment in the Nigerian film industry to help filmmakers have greater control over African narratives while they keep expanding the reach of local stories globally.
He urged stakeholders in Nollywood to invest in the industry to ensure African stories are told authentically, while also innovating with formats such as immersive theatre, which his company has been exploring through projects like Valley of Hidden Treasures.
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