Stakeholders in the Nigerian movie industry have criticised the wrong use of English in sub-titles of indigenous films.

The Publicity Secretary, National Association of Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP), Mr Ozi Okoli on Sunday in Lagos said that indigenous films were usually put together in a hurry.

He said this was responsible for the poor English used in the sub-titles.

Okoli added that executive producers, who financed productions, always wanted the films to be out as quickly as possible.

“As a result of this, post-production work is hurriedly done without adequate editing to check errors.

“Again, illiteracy plays a major role in paraphrasing and translating Nigerian films.

“That the translator understands Yoruba language is not enough for him to also have a firm grasp of English language,” he said.

Okoli suggested that it was necessary to engage competent professionals in linguistics for a hitch-free translation of the films.

He argued that by so doing, Nigerian films would be saved the problem of “quacks and the shameful packaging of post-production.

“These films go out of the country for image making and some producers do not care,” he said.

Okoli urged Nigerian film producers to employ either English Language graduates or linguists to help them do a proper sub-titling.

He said that theatre artistes and other related holders of arts and humanities degrees should endeavour to do proper acting and speaking correct English.

“Mass communication too is a related field that must be included by the producers to get things right in this era,” he said.

Okoli said that the National Films and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), responsible for grading and rating the films, should also beef up its responsibility since it is in charge of quality control.

A Yoruba film producer, Deji Etiwe, said that professionals were there to do the job but poverty made the producers to cut cost.

“Most of them know what to do but if they see those they can pay peanuts, they go for them than pay a competent professional to do the job.

“They do not bother about the interpretation that would help educate the people, both at home and outside the country,” Etiwe said.

He expressed regrets that the film sector had become an all comers’ affair, where anybody could become a film producer overnight.

“There are no criteria for people to become movie producers and actors.

“If the National Association of Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) and the National Film and Video Censors Board are doing much, all these would have been corrected since,” he said.

He said government did not act on the blue print submitted to the National Assembly on how the arts industry should be regulated to sanitise it.

Another film Producer, Ariyike Oladapo, said that as the censors board controlled films and screened them, they should do the same for the movies.

“If it gets to the board, they should take time to go through it and send back the badly-interpreted ones so that they can be corrected,” Oladapo said.