Five Nollywood Movies Nominated For Paris Awards

Five Nigerian movies have been nominated to compete for the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2017 edition of Nollywood Week Paris Film Festival.
The movies include award winning “’76″ directed by Kemi Adetiba and ‘Dinner’, directed by Jay Franklyn Jitubah.  Others are ‘Gidi Blues’ and ‘Green White Green’ which were directed by Femi Odugbemi and Abba Makama and The Wedding Party.
The prestigious People’s Choice Award is sponsored by Angenieux, a leading manufacturer of high quality optic cinema lenses for the broadcast and film industries.  The company will gracefully put its optics at the disposal of the winner of the award giving them a chance to combine their creativity with French technical knowhow during their next shoot”.
Nollywood week Paris Film Festival started in 2013 and is organized by Okada Media, an organization based in Paris, France, which show cases the best of the Nigerian film industry with the aim of finding a larger audience and more sustainable distribution system for quality films.
The festival offers festival goers a chance to discover a dozen movies selected by a Jury of professionals.  Nigerian film makers are encouraged to submit short films, animations and Nigerian television series for consideration.  Also, musical performances as well as seminars and workshops dedicated to the African Cinema industry have been lined up to enrich the industry.
The annual event which is scheduled to hold from Thursday, May 11 to Sunday, May 14 at Cinema L’Afriequin in Paris France, ends with the traditional presentation of the Nollywood Week People’s Choice Award which rewards some of the best talents of African Cinema.
Nigerian movies have not won any international, especially the Oscar and this has been attributed to poor quality of     production and bad subtitles.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, recently, announced a tripartite partnership involving the ministry, United Nation (UN) World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and global news leader, CNN to leverage on Nollywood to promote tourism in Nigeria.
Lai Mohammed, who announced the plan at the Annual general meeting of the Association of Tour Operators (NATOP) held in Lagos last Tuesday, said talks were at the advance stage to forge a very strong and effective partnership to use the country’s comparative advantage in film production through Nollywood to promote tourism in Nigeria.
“This is a path we have not trodden before, but we are sure will go a long way in making it possible for us to push tourism from the back burner to the mainstream of the economy”, he said noting that government set up a presidential council on the ease of doing business as part of its efforts to improve Nigeria’s ranking on the tourism competitive index of the World Travel and Tourism Council.