I am pretty much impressed with the rate at which Nollywood is growing. The contents and pictures that are coming out of the industry is pretty amazing. More importantly for me, is the rate at which manpower is growing. Professionals in the industry now have access to world class knowledge and state of the art equipments and they have great room to begin to grow and expand and put this knowledge to use; even though it saddens to know that some of these stories don’t do us as Christians any good than entertainment.
A Christian needs more than just entertainment to survive. We are up against real life issues and we need a constant reminder of what God can do and what He needs us to do to survive. Yes, we hear a lot of that in sermons but should it end there? (Anyway that’s another topic for another day).
So back to my initial thoughts, Nollywood wouldn’t have come this far if people were not willing to invest and put money into it. Be not deceived, all the big movies you love today had someone’s investment in them. The ripple effect of that is the great people using their skill and talents and films you see.
See, believe it or not, a Christian film can minister and entertain (that’s another topic for another day too). All I’m trying to say is that we need to begin to put structures in place for the promotion and distribution of faith-based films. My fear for our future as faith-based filmmakers is that, WE ARE ALL DOING THE SAME THING! Some of us need to focus on financing the industry, some need to focus on skill and technicality, some need to focus on marketing and distribution…we need to put our foot in all spheres, AND WE NEED TO NETWORK TOO! So many thoughts in my head but I am going to end this post here.
The Christian Film Industry needs funds friends; we need a pool to draw from. This is something Nollywood enjoys! There are people and institutions that make sure of that. As a body I want to encourage us to grow beyond the realm of consuming free films alone (because nothing is free, someone just paid for it) and begin to give so that we can encourage young filmmakers and we can begin to take Christian films to the next level. Truth is, if you’ve seen that film anywhere else, it can be done with the right budget and personnel. THIS IS WHAT DIVINITY FILMS IS ALL ABOUT. We need you to get on board! Will you?
Let me know what you think in the comment section. Cheers!
