By Emmanuel Elebeke

Four years after President Goodluck Jonathan released N3 billion intervention fund to support the Nigerian movie industry, the federal government has launched another laudable project geared towards boosting the industry.  Tagged, “Project ACT Nollywood”, it’s the presidential intervention programme set up to improve technical and professional capacity in the value chain of the Nigerian movie industry.

The project is expected to tackle the major challenge working against the optimum development of the sector – a poor distribution system and menace of piracy. To achieve this ambitious objective, the federal government last week launched N2 billion Innovation Distribution Fund, IDF, aimed at improving the distribution of audio-visual content, cut down on piracy, and to better protect intellectual property in the industry.

The IDF is targeted at the businesses that operate or plan to operate in the film distribution space. The ultimate objective is to make pirated copies of Nollywood movies unattractive to consumers by ensuring that genuine products are easily available at a multiplicity of accessible points.

This is to ensure that those who put their efforts into film production are properly rewarded.

The core plan is a market driven approach which will boost the number and quality of distribution options through strategic co-financing of new channels and supporting the expansion of available ones.

These could include technology-based solutions such as digital streaming, enablers of effective distribution, movie exhibition infrastructure and physical distribution.

According to a statement issued in Abuja by the Special Adviser, Media to CME, Mr. Paul C Nwabuikwu, applications for the distribution fund are welcome through the Project ACT online web portal which will be operational for a two month period starting January 19, 2015.