The Manager of City
Mall Cinemas, Lagos, Mrs Kate Onoja, has called on the Federal Government to encourage the cinema industry by reducing taxes and fees paid by operators.
Onoja made the appeal in an interview with newsmen in Lagos, recently.
She said that the various fees and taxes levied on the industry were enormous and accounted for the high fees being paid by persons who patronise cinemas in the country.
“It takes a lot to bring in one foreign movie into the country and you have so many things, ranging from censorship, immigration and clearances, to pay for.
“And, when you put all that into consideration, you won’t blame the proprietors, because the cinema business is aimed at making profit,” she said.
Onoja, therefore, urged the government to subsidise expenditure, including taxes and other levies, in the industry, saying that if that was done, fees charged by owners of cinemas would drop.
According to her, with the current situation of things, it is close to saying that it is impossible for the fees to go down.
Onoja particularly decried the effect of poor electricity supply in the country to cinema business, saying that cinema operators were spending much money to provide power to run their businesses.
“The resources used in powering a cinema could be channelled to other things that will make the cinema a better place— if we had stable power supply in the country.
“It costs a whole lot to run your generator to make sure that the movies are not interrupted,’’ she said.
She said that the government could help in educating people on cinemas, so that they would know that recreation and entertainment were good for them.
She said: “Cinema intensifies your movie experience. It is different from when you watch your movie at home; all the details that you might not even see watching a movie at home, you get them at the cinema.
“Also, watching with people makes a movie more interesting and even easier to assimilate”.
On the quality of local movies, Onoja said that funding was a major challenge for the Nigerian movie industry, saying, “our movies cannot contest with foreign movies when it comes to the quality of the production.
“We need more money in our movie industry and one way of getting this is through sponsorship; sponsorship is needed for better quality movies”.
She, however, said that in spite of the challenges, “the Nigerian movie industry is moving from strength to strength, and I am happy for it’’.