Mr. Ike Nnaebue is the Founder and Chief Executive at Passionate Communications Limited, a full-service production and communication company. In this interview with IKECHI NZEAKO, he tasks Nigerian filmmakers to tell authentic stories, adding that they should stop telling cheap and forgettable stories. Excerpts: What was the motivation to start this business? How did you even get into it? I decided to pursue a career in filmmaking because I love storytelling. I love the power that storytelling gives you as an individual; to be able to express yourself, to build your voice and to influence society and help society chart a course to shape narratives. So those are the things that inspired me to go into filmmaking. As I was making a lifelong career, I needed a structure to handle the business side of it, and that’s why I founded my production company, because if you want to be serious, you have to ultimately own your own production company so that you can channel the business through the production. This is because filmmaking is both an art and a business. So while at the individual level you handle the art of it, you need a business structure to handle the business side of things and to be able to bring everything together and build a team eventually. And then, how has it been over the years for you? It’s been an interesting journey; it’s been a steady growth, with all the challenges of doing business, especially in Nigeria. I would say that as a company, we have grown and we’ve been consistent. We’ve worked on different projects; we’ve produced for other companies. We’ve produced TV commercials for companies and worked with different individuals and organisations across the board. We recently co-produced a film with a couple of international co-producers, which has been doing very well. What have been the challenges? Every business, every start-up, every young business will always tell you that they can do a lot more with more funding. So, funding has always been a challenge, and we have been that through surmounted that through creative processes and innovation. Another challenge that we have faced is recruitment; sometimes it’s difficult to get young people to understand the importance of dedication and building for the future as opposed to just wanting instant gratification. People these days don’t understand career and building a reputation in an industry. If a young person wants to come into your business field, what qualities does that person need to have? There are two ways you can go into filmmaking: you can go into filmmaking as a creative, which means you’re a storyteller, or you’re a cinematographer, or you’re an actor; or you work in sound or any of the technical departments. Another way is you could be an investor; it could be just purely business for you. So you set up a business company when you set up a production company, and you hire creatives to work with you. These days, you don’t necessarily need an office; you can work from home, and you can be where everybody’s working from their locations. That’s the trend that we’ve seen since COVID; people now don’t necessarily need to hire an office, equip it and then employ staff that will always have to come to the office. You can work on projects and achieve a lot without a physical office where everyone comes and works. And then the next thing is you need to network, you need to start networking in the industry; follow industry leaders and see what’s going on in the industry and attend industry events like film festivals, masterclasses, symposiums and all that. Basically, start your relationships and your networks, and just be a part of the ecosystem. How will you assess the Nigerian film industry? The Nigerian film industry has grown over the years; we’re so proud of the growth. One of the things that we are proud of is the ability to connect with local and international audiences, especially across Africa. Some film industries on the continent struggle to connect with even their people. But in Nigeria, we’ve been able to connect with our local people, and we’ve also been able to connect with Africa and global audiences. But recently, the industry has been experiencing what I call a depression at the collective level. Netflix and Amazon Prime pulled out from Nigeria, and these were attracting funds into the industry and stimulating growth and encouraging a lot of productions. But since they’ve been gone, and then there were also the major distribution platforms. Now the industry is struggling with distribution; that’s why you find a lot of people tilting to YouTube. I’ve always said that no industry can grow by using the YouTube format. People are realising that the YouTube format is not the way to go because the margins are very small. It’s only the Nigerian film industry that releases its films directly to YouTube as its first point of release; that business model doesn’t work. It’s not sustainable because the return on investment is so minimal that they have to reduce the cost of production to the barest minimum. And we know that the cost in relation to the quality of the work. You need to spend time in pre-production. You need to spend time in post-production. And we know that time equals money. And so when you’re cutting costs drastically, you’re cutting down drastically on the time that you spend on the production. And it will always show. Utilising a model like YouTube is unsustainable, and it’s not our own. Tech companies have their agenda. They don’t care too much about the quality of the content that is being put up by the creators. Another issue is that African creators are paid way less than their international counterparts. They spend less to advertise in Africa, and the YouTube money comes from advertisements. So there’s for explanation of how the algorithm prioritises creators from the global North because creators from the global South get way less payouts. It’s not good right now for the industry; the cinemas are the only distribution avenue for any serious filmmaker right now. But, then the cinema numbers are not really looking that good because of the situation in the economy; basic things come first before people can think of going to the cinema. People just stay home and scroll endlessly on TikTok and Instagram, and watch free movies on YouTube. So it’s, it’s a challenging time for the industry. There’s a lot of innovation in the part of the players. And I would continue to say that we need to start thinking seriously about establishing our distribution platforms in terms of digital distribution. There are a couple of platforms that need and we need to be supported. I hope that they also understand the power and the importance of collaboration. So, they can welcome people who have ideas and other resources that they can bring to the table, so that we can build something that is of scale and that will be sustainable and that will support the industry. In terms of themes and topics, how do you assess the industry? I think we have come a long way since the juju movies and rituals and all that. I would say that Nigerian filmmakers need to focus a lot more on telling authentic African stories. We do have a lot of authentic African stories that have not even been touched. They should tell authentic African stories; there are enough of all these shallow stories of boy, girl, this, that. There are deeper stories that we can tell that influence and inspire, not just stories to make people laugh. A lot of the stories that people tell these days are very forgettable. Spend more time in research, more time in story development and tell stories that matter; enough of forgettable stories that people tell.