You are the director cum producer of the so much talked about, yet-to-be seen movie titled 30 days. What was the experience like, having to produce and direct at the same time. Was that your first attempt at directing?
I will take the last question first. Yes, it was my first time directing. The idea of the screenplay came to me in 2003 but I actually wrote the screenplay sometime in 2004. At one point, I was going to have someone else direct it but I changed my mind since I felt I was in a better position to interpret my vision of the screenplay. Following that, I decided to collaborate with Ego Boyo in producing the film. I had sent the first ten pages of two screenplays in 2004 and she liked 30 Days better. Having been away from Nigeria for 20 years, having Ego on the project was crucial to enable me focus on directing while I was in Nigeria. As to what the experience was like, I think so far it has been the highlight of my career; it definitely ranks higher than my first six-figure settlement as lawyer. It is really hard when you produce and direct but I would not trade it for anything.

What made you decide to come and shoot a movie here in Nigeria?
To answer that question, I would have to go back a bit. Basically my first degree was in Theatre Art at the University of Benin. I studied under the likes of Femi Osofisan and Muyiwa Awodiya. I graduated in 1985. Once I graduated I did my youth service and I left for the states. While in the states I studied Law, but I always knew that I would always go back to the arts. I can tell you right now I had no passion for law even though I am good at it. I did not enjoy making arguments of civil and human rights in an American courtroom when I knew deep down that some of the same things obtain in my home country. However, the law is a good experience to have because I am able to navigate the landmines of entertainment contracts and the like. Even while I practiced law in Los Angeles, I stayed involved in the entertainment field. Once Nollywood began to blossom, I knew I would come back to shoot a film. I did not want to shoot American movies; I wanted to shoot African movies so I made a bold decision to come give it a try.

Can you give us the synopsis of the movie?
Well you can get all the information about the movie on our website 30daysthemovie.com but for your readers who might not have the internet readily available, I’ll describe 30 days as a political thriller, an action movie and a love story rolled into one. It is a story set in the contemporary urban Nigeria. It is a fictional story - what if one day, some Nigerians or any group of Africans say “look we have had enough of the corruption, of the incompetence, no electricity, no good schools, we’ve had enough of less than 1% of people having the wealth while over ninety are living in abject poverty”. What will happen if such a revolution happens or if Nigerians run out of their elastic patience with corrupt politicians. That is the premise of the story. Within the story is another story of revenge, which basically intertwines with the bigger story of the revolution.

The motivation for the story?
Basically I came back home in December 2003 after 11 or so years of being away to find so much decay in the infrastructure of the country. While I was abroad, I thought nobody was complaining but I came home to find a very vibrant press here. My favourite pasttime was to read the papers every morning and on the morning of the 24th I read this article in another newspaper and the writer called it “Do they know its Christmas time? I was moved by the story that it inspired my screenplay.

I met some of the cast and crew who were full of praise for the production saying the welfare package was wonderful and the working environment conducive. How did you finance the movie? Financially we have our three executive producers, Ego Boyo, renowned Nigerian producer and a family friend, Toyin Dawodu, an investment adviser living in the United States a good friend and Chike Amobi, a lawyer in the U.S and me. We also got product placement funds from OANDO, a company now ran by progressive individuals who see the future of Nollywood as it should be and are willing to come in and help. We are still waiting on product placement money from a telecommunications giant V-mobile. They too are very interested in supporting better made films in Nigeria. So basically that is where the financing has come from. Everyone in the financial chain recognizes that we are striving to take this home grown industry to the next level and they have been wonderful.

So why the name 30 days and not something like Nemesis or Karma?
(Laughs) You should be tired of those names aren’t you? Won’t you be disappointed with me if after over 20 years of education, all I can come up with would be Nemesis? (Laughs) Jokes apart, 30 Days comes from what actually happens in the movie. There is this thing that Nigerians in the US do every year (when they can afford it), they go back home to Naija for Xmas and this holiday usually lasts for one month. And in this movie there is a character Kene Alumona who comes home for 30 Days. The President also gives the Inspector of Police 30 Days to solve the mystery of dead politicians before he brings in outsiders.

But why did you then decide to background the movie with politics?
Every human being is political in nature even if they do not act on it. There is a reason why I am in the industry and it is to tell my own part of the African story, just like the person doing the Epic or romantic story tells his or her own part of the African story. I want to affect my society as it is right now. I am not saying I won’t write epic or other stories at some point but for now I needed to write this story. It is a film that will make a whole bunch of people uncomfortable watching it. It is not just about politics, 30 Days has action or fight sequences, intrigue, love, sex, and religion, everything to catch different people’s fancy.

Are we expecting the movie to be premiered or is it just going to be released on VCD and DVD?
Yeah, we are going to premiere just like Ego Boyo did with Keeping Faith. However we will be premiering the Unrated Directors Cut in Maryland USA, April 30, 2006. We are still debating on whether we will do a mini tour abroad before we have the African premiere in Lagos, Nigeria.

You shot in Lagos and Abuja, why the choice of both locations and not in other parts of the country?
Basically, I m telling a story that has politics in it, there is no way I can talk about politics and not have Abuja, the seat of power. I needed some images of that city to sell the story. I also needed some of the grittiness of Lagos and moreover the industry’s talent is overwhelmingly situated in Lagos.

Recently there was a conference with a title, “The Future of Development Film in Africa” urging filmmakers to make developmental films; do we see you making any of such films now or in the future? I came in from America a week after the conference, but I heard about it from Joke Silva. Well I haven’t read all the stuff that came out from the conference, so I really can’t answer that question in terms of what the conference had to say about Nollywood. First, I make films that appeal to me in some sense or the other. I don’t give a hoot about labels. Further, I don’t care about genres and the like because those are rules that Hollywood created and I don’t intend to follow their script. My company is named Native Lingua Films. I am not going to go out of my way to please anybody who doesn’t understand my movies. I don’t have to have a universal appeal as long as those who understand my Lingua get it. I will write, direct and produce from the heart for Africa and friends of Africa.

What were the challenges you faced having to shoot in Nigeria?
So many challenges, but we thank God we overcame a lot of them. First of all there is no infrastructure for movie making in this country. We don’t have sound studios and proper locations are hard to find. A lot of folks out there don’t trust productions crews to film in their homes. Thanks to Ego, the DP Cricket, line producer Faith and her assistants, we were able to overcome some of the difficulties. We had huge problems with locations with white walls as well.

I don’t understand that?
It affects the lighting of the films a great deal. Pick up any Hollywood film which has black folks as the primary actors, you will see them going for coloured walls. We tried solving the problem by using good set designers. Hillary and Ogbe did their best to break down the monotony of the white walls. You see the difference instantly in the footage. Black people look better generally when there are colours behind them. Another major problem we had was getting trained extras. There is no agency that you can call to say I need this many actors to act in a church scene or party scene. You just have a bunch of untrained people rushing to set and I had to spend extra time training or coaching them to do what I wanted. One of the things I didn’t want to do on set was to treat extras as if they weren’t part of the film, it’s so important to me that extras act well because they can make or break various crowd scenes in your film. I see that in a lot of Nollywood films.

Your directing style?
Since I only have one film to my credit, I would not say that I have not developed a style yet. But I like a lot of visual stuff as opposed to too much dialogue. Film is about pictures not too much dialogue or else it would be radio. However, I was very mindful that this style is not used a lot in Nollywood. So in other not to loose my audience, there is a bit of dialogue in this film. However, the actors can attest to the fact that my lines are very short. That is when you can tell a good actor, when they can deliver short lines convincingly. I am also sitting in the editing room a lot in order to get my angles and vision out there. Editing can affect a director’s style immensely.

You from the eye of a Nigerian who has been in America and who is in tune with the problems and the shortcomings of Nollywood. If you are to suggest the way forward, what will be coming from you? I am ardent believer in Nigerian movies. I am so glad of what the industry has achieved and anybody that knows me knows this fact. Having said that, there is always a time to move forward, that is one thing I’ve learnt living in America. They are constantly changing and perfecting ideas. You could see that with my American DP Cricket. She would constantly adjust the lighting until I yelled action – that I belief that you could always do better. Nollywood is an industry that started with nothing and it has grown tremendously in the past 14 years. We just need to keep changing and getting better and bigger. There is not much structure in terms of distribution, marketing, advertising, and actor/crew guilds. I am hoping that these things will get better in time. I also see a lot of petty jealousies in the industry and there are too many cliques. People spend an inordinate amount of time talking crap or gossiping about others. You have people who don’t want to respect the role that others have to play in the game. Film is a collaborative effort and each person must be acknowledged for what they do. Being a director or producer does not make you any more important than the PA, the location scout, the cameraman or the extra. Everyone has a role to play in the process and if one person in the chain messes up, then the whole thing is messed up. Some producers pre-occupy themselves with what actors do with their money and that seems to be a Nigerian thing. I believe if you pay an actor, you should not give a damn what they do with their money as long as the show up on set on time and deliver. The actor is the product whether anyone likes it or not. The generality of the audiences do not buy a movie to watch lighting or marvel at the director’s moves or the producer for that matter. All they care about is the story and actors in the setting of the story. Once we understand this simple premise, the industry will blossom because everybody behind the scene will work towards making the actor look better thereby selling more films. I once heard a director complain that the actors were getting more recognition than he was. That just cracked me up because if he wanted adulation from the public, he should have gone into acting not directing. Once we can drop some of our petty jealousies and see the industry as a unit, there is no limit to what Nollywood can achieve. Only then will we be able to tackle some of the problems distribution, quality, censorship, piracy and others.

What next?
(Laughs). Whatever it is, it will set tongues wagging just like 30 Days will. I am not a very conventional person you know.