By Olalekan Bilesanmi

Out of Luck, written by Chinaza Onuzo, is directed by Niyi Akinmulayan. The drama  revolves around a young lottery operator, Tope Tedela,  and his girl friend, Linda Ejiofor.

Their times are turned upside down when a local gangster, Femi Branch, insists he (Tope Tedela) pays  out on a lottery he didn’t win. Their attempt to pay the gangster takes them on a thrill ride from the slums on the Island to a  mansion  in  Ikoyi. The movie, set to hit the cinemas across the country, is produced by Zuma Onuekwusi and Chinaza Onuzo. It parades  stars like Jide Kosoko, Wole Ojo,  Adesua Etomi, Chigul,   Kunle Remi , among others.

Don Omope is   Film One Head of Sales, Film House Cinema  Production and Distribution  Company. In this interview, he explains why his company is distributing through cinemas, and says, unlike in the past, it will be tough for pirates to steal films anymore.

Out of Luck, what is it really about?

It is  a  traffic story in Lagos. It’s  the  story of a man who does a lottery business for a big man, so to say, but the big man did  not win. He then wants the boy to pay him N5m.   He wants to get his money from the boy by all means. The boy  runs  in order not pay the money and at the same time he does not offend the baba. It’s a classic cat and mouse story that we are all familiar with, that often involves the hustle and buzzle of  Lagos. We are distributing the film. Of course,   it is not a true life experience; it is very much fictional but it is a story everybody can relate  to. It is something you and I have witnessed at one time or the other in our day to day activities in Lagos. If you take a closer look at those who play lottery in Lagos, you will see that the play is not totally   fictional. It is   an action film that x-rays the reality of day to day events  in our environment.

Film One, apart from producing, is also distributing the film across Nigerian cinemas

We are distributing as well because  it is an integration company. We produce, distribute. We have our cinemas spread across Nigeria.   At the moment, we have the largest chain of cinemas in Nigeria.   We have the distribution and production arm of the business. We are the only studio system in Nigeria.

You said the technology Film One is bringing on board will substantially reduced  piracy

The aim of  Film One is to give maximum exposure to every work on its stable and also maximum returns. One of the biggest challenges to effective distribution is piracy. The key is how we can bring to the barest minimum  piracy on every product on our stable so that there would be maximum returns to  film makers. And  the key thing to reduce  piracy here is technology. We distribute films to cinemas which are DCP compliant. It is the pinnacle of technology at the moment.   It is what is used around the world,   including the best cinemas; it is the latest technology in film distribution. You cannot show the same film on the same projector. Every cinema has a code. To pirate a film like that, it’s most likely you go to the cinema to copy which is not possible, or you get a copy of the DVD, but because it is encrypted,   you cannot  pirate it because you will need to decrypt it, and for you to decrypt it, you will have to get the serial number and code of the projector and no one person has that. So, we have put measures in place to make it cumbersome to manipulate for piracy. Going to Atlanta would not have made that much impact if it had not been made into DCP even though it was still pirated outside the chain of cinemas where it was distributed. So, if we continue in this manner, it then means film makers can continue  to make good films and be assured of making good returns ultimately.   After  cinema distribution, we would move to online distribution, in-flight distribution before going to DVD.

Message of Out of Luck

The film is saying that it is not only drama, Nigerians can also produce action  films.