An excited Bailey led the trend of the speeches, just before the lights were dimmed for opening film of the City-to-City segment of the festival.
There were so many fans of the film’s actors from across Africa as well as the anxious North American movie buffs who cheered the moment to high heavens.
“We have been doing City-to-City for many years, featuring cities like London, Seoul, Athens, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, Istanbul and Tel Aviv. But then, it became obvious that the place to go next is Lagos. Although we have been having Nigerian films at the festival like Abeni by Tunde Kelani andHalf of a Yellow Sun by Biyi Bandele, we have not really given the kind of attention that filmmaking from Nigeria deserves,” declared Bailey whose love for Nigerian movies was quite obvious.
Continuing, Bailey said: “One of the first people that I told is an actor who is one of the best actors working anywhere on the planet earth, given that he has shown the range of his skill as an actor-he is David Oyelowo of Selma.”
With this, he introduced Oyelowo whose name immediately called for a standing ovation.
“My people!” David Oyelowo thundered with excitement, keeping the applause going.
“My dad gets worried sometimes about how my name is pronounced and he would tell them that they have to call it like the town crier… Oye-Oye-Oyelowo. This is one of the moments I must tell you that I am a very proud Nigerian. We are storytellers by nature. We have been telling stories traditionally, comically and poetically. Tonight, I would tell you the reason I have so much confidence in what is happening with Nollywood. The confidence I have as an actor came from my Nigerian heritage. I lived in Nigeria for seven year from the age six to 13. And something I learnt there was how to walk into any situation as they came. We don’t know how to be shy. We don’t know how to walk into a room sideways. Working as an actor in the UK, we get so formal with the lines when we go for auditions. But in Naija, we say… ‘‘just give me the part now, let me play it.’’
“People say Nollywood is number two or three, but I say we are going to be number one.’’
