By Benjamin Njoku

West Africa’s foremost film distribution company, Blue Pictures is set to hold the second edition of its biennial industry interactive forum tagged, ‘Next Gen Mini Conference.”

The conference , which is designed to give wings to aspiring professionals in the film and content creation business, is slated to take place on the 26th of October, 2023 at The Marriot Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.

This year’s edition with the theme, ‘Next Gen Evolve’, is being organized in partnership with the Nigerian International Film and TV Summit, and targets students and future professionals in areas like film producing, movie critiquing, directing, film financing, marketing and content creation.

Some of the notable professionals billed to speak at the event include: Adedayo Thomas (CEO, National Film and Videos Censors Board), Uche Nwuka (Director, Bank of Industry), Patrick Donald Lee (Executive, Viva Cinemas), Chris Odeh (Senior Producer, Sozo Films), Mary Ephraim (President, Homelands Films) as well as Tochukwu ‘Dr Foy’ MacFoy (Founder, Energize Music).

Aside offering creative Nigerian youths the opportunity to network with established film professionals, one of the highlights of the programme is the ‘pitch session’, where possible co-production deals would be struck for making and marketing of film and TV content ideas.

The convener of the initiative and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Pictures, Joy Efe Odiete, enjoined Nigerian youths to take advantage of the conference to familiarize themselves with the film industry environment.

According to her, “The essence of the confab is to provide a platform for the youths to interact with personalities that have the wherewithal to sharpen their careers in the film business. It was inspired by my experience when I joined the industry, because there was nobody to lean on for mentorship.

So this conference is designed to provide that support starters would need to fit into the industry. We hold it biennially, so we could have time to prepare those with successful pitches before taking on a new batch.”