FG Releases N420m To Fund Nollywood

For many years, the Federal Government has been rightly accused of contributing very little to the growth of the indigenous movie industry popularly known as Nollywood. Finally the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration says it has released a film production fund of N420.2 million to the Nigerian film industry.
According to a statement issued by the Deputy Director of Information, Federal Ministry of Finance, Patricia Deworitshe, on Friday in Abuja, the money which is the second payment to the industry will help 105 film distributors.  The government has earlier introduced the “Project Act Nollywood” aimed at developing the movie industry to make value chain.
The intervention comes in form of a Film Production Fund (FPF) and Capacity Building Fund (CBF). The FPF and CBF have been fully implemented, while the IDF which is the third component of the project is ongoing. The IDF covers online, national, regional and community categories of Nollywood film distribution and exhibition.
The objectives of IDF are to improve the distribution network of Nigerian Audio Visual contents, cut down on piracy, create jobs and protect Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) within the Nigerian entertainment industry.  N1.8 billion was approved for disbursement to 106 beneficiaries in this component and N1.335 billion was disbursed earlier in the year as first tranche to 105 beneficiaries.
Mrs Deworitshe said before the release of the second tranche, the finance ministry had carried out a successful monitoring and evaluation of the first tranche disbursement. Fifteen community cinemas and viewing centres have been established through the grant and this has improved the distribution net work of movies in Nigeria.
The programme has supported 18 films in strengthening online distribution platforms. This has helped curb illegal downloads and piracy. 256 permanent jobs and 544 temporary jobs have been created through the financial support provided to 105 beneficiaries by the programme.
Mrs Deworitshe further  said, the programme had also aided the extension of the Nollywood industry to Sub saharan Africa through the funding of national distributors to expand their distribution capacity and network.
Through the programme, distributors had expanded their capacity to lip synching their content in French for onward distribution to the ECOWAS sub-region, she added.