Biola Alabi says mums and dads still fund Nollywood films for filmmakers

Biola Alabi is of the opinion that there should be more transparency in analysing and giving accurate data of box office in Nigeria.

Biola Alabi, founder of Biola Alabi Media, has said parents of some filmmakers in Nigeria still fund their children movies.

Alabi told Nairametrics this while responding to a question on transparency in the box office sales and figures.

The producer of Banana Island Ghost said "I definitely think there should be more transparency but because a lot of funding for our movies is coming from private sources, it is sort of like asking for public information from a private company.

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"The requirements for a publicly listed company are different from a private company and that’s the challenge we have in Nollywood. As long as you have a mom and dad funding a film, the filmmaker gets to decide what financial information gets released. So the more investors that get involved, the more transparency you’ll have," the former Africa Magic boss said.

 

Continuing, Alabi also said the culture of transparency has be accepted and imbibed by the practitioners.

"Also, there has to be a culture of transparency, there has to be a culture of accepting that some films are going to fail and some films are not going to connect. There also has to be more education on big films, mid-level films, and small films. Until we have that kind of education in our industry, I think it will be hard to have transparency because many don’t understand how to categorise those box office numbers or how to process them correctly.

"One thing that’s improved tremendously is reporting to investors that fund Nollywood films. For us at Biola Alabi Media, we’re very structured in how we provide our financial performance to our investors. We make sure we give our investors quarterly reports and regular updates whether it is good news or bad. Now imagine how much more transparent we would have to be if we had times ten of that funding, so I think more investment will increase transparency," she said.

However, Variety reports that the total box office is on track to top 5 billion Naira for the first time in 2018.

The U.S. based platform reports further that investors continue to pour money into new theaters, fueling hopes that Nigeria is only beginning to scratch the surface of its exhibition potential.

To this end, industry professionals came together to launch the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association of Nigeri.

Moses Babatope, the group executive director and COO of FilmOne Distribution told Variety that the icreation of the body will go a long way toward boosting the professional standards of an industry often criticized for lax bookkeeping.

The association was instrumental in bringing comScore to Nigeria, which will help the country align with global norms in gathering and analyzing box office data in 2019.