Akure agog as FIAF begins
Indigenous language film makers will invade Akure, Ondo State capital for the 4th edition of the prestigious Behind the Screen Festival of Indigenous African Film next month.
Behind the Screen Festival is a building capacity workshop in the Nigerian film industry which has now transformed to the Festival of Indigenous African Films(FIAF).
Organised by one of Nigeria’s foremost films and records production companies, Remdel Optimum Communication, Akure, in conjunction with the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), the festival, which runs from 3rd through 9th of October, at Owena International Hotel , yearly, provides a better platform for stakeholders in the thriving movie business in Nigeria to rub minds nd chart a good cause for the development and improvement of the industry.
The theme of this year’s festival; “Films, Politics and the Society”, according to its director, Mrs. Biodun Ibitola, is derived from the fact that 2011 is an election year in the country, and the realisation that films and indeed arts have a lot to contribute to the political development of Africa.
The festival director asked for a drastic change of attitude to the study and use of African indigenous languages, noting that making of films in indigenous languages will help to refocus, re-engineer and reposition the languages as well as save them from abrupt extinction.
“It also will expand the coding, documentation and communicative capacities of the languages, facilitating the linkage of Africans in the diaspora to their roots and project the rich tourism potentials in Africa.
Films produced in African languages contribute better to the pool of universal knowledge as pertaining to African tenets, and at the same time preserve the rich cultural heritage, ordinances, norms and values of the peoples of Africa,” Ibitola stressed
She rgued that skills acquisition, annual film makers lecture as well as summit, media day, film screening and exhibition, women programme, Tiwa n tiwa and Karakata forum and recognition of notable individuals who have contributed towards the development of the film industry form part of the highlights of the six -day festival.
