Okey Ogunjiofor, popularly known as “The Father of Nollywood” in an interview on ‘Wake Up Nigeria’ on TVC talks about his journey so far.
Okey Ogunjiofor is a multiple award-winning filmmaker, actor, writer and publisher.
He is the creator of the popular movie, ‘Amina’, the first and only Nigeria Film to make it to the Top10 Globally on Netflix and it received 30 Nominations for the AMVCA’s 2022 went home with 4 awards.
According to Okey Ogunjiofor, it took him 25 years to put the body of work together. He revealed that he started in 1996 september and he has been on the research for 19 years
He said,
“I wrote a proposal to the Federal Government and said to them, ‘i can do a program in order to empower the girl child and women’ and luckily, i got a response from the presidency through the center for women development.
“Two years down the line they pulled out, they said the change of government was the issue. Meaning that all the research i did during that period would be gone and it was all with my own money.
”But because I had set my mind that i was going to change the film industry and fight for the empowerment of women, i decided to continue with that research.
“The budget for the project then was 44 million naira. Nobody could give me that amount of money because where would i have sold it? Cds and Dvd’s?
“By the grace of God, the Bank of Industry and the Project Act Nollywood came on board and that gave me the impetus to continue.
Speaking on the just concluded AMVCA award and his win he said,
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful but i had thought that we would win about 6-7 awards so i wasn’t really too exited but the fact that we won the best overall movie in Africa was what made me okay.
“I said to my self that, well if we didn’t get all the acts that we wanted, at least we got this.”
Amina is a feature film made with collaborations that spanned three continents of Africa, Europe and America.
See the video below for more!
