The Timelessness of Tunde Kelani’s Ṣaworoìdẹ (2024)

• Yusuf Omotayo
• November 24, 2024

• Yusuf Omotayo
• November 24, 2024

One early Saturday morning in October 2024, I received an email from renowned Nigerian filmmaker, Tunde Kelani. It was a response to an email I had sent the previous day telling him I was working on an essay looking at the greatness and significance of his political drama film, Ṣaworoìdẹ, released in 1999, 25 years ago, to Nollywood. I felt the essay would only be complete by speaking with the man who made the film, and so I wrote to him asking for an interview. Part of my email read:

While some experts try to make a strong distinction between ‘Old Nollywood’ and ‘New Nollywood’, I am of the opinion that great art is timeless. Focusing on the strength of Ṣaworoìdẹ, I argue that it is timeless and has over the years addressed issues that are still happening in Nigeria now.

In his midnight email response, Kelani thanked me for my ‘thought-provoking email’ but added:

…but before you go too far, you should watch the two films, Ṣaworoìdẹ and Agogo Èèwọ̀ together. And if you feel like it, you should also add Arugba or The Campus Queen, which also has the smear of a category my works have been dubbed: ‘the conscience camera’. I have a sinking feeling these days that the core Nollywood or creatives have lost their conscience, that is if they had any at all in the first place…

Over three days, Kelani sent me private links to each film he had mentioned in the email, and as I watched the films, I realized how right he was. That I could not write about or discuss Ṣaworoìdẹ without making reference to the three other films. Even though their plots differed, they were connected in the way they layered socio-political problems and the role ordinary people played in making changes in their society.

We agreed to meet in his house in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on a Tuesday to discuss not only Ṣaworoìdẹ at this point but also the growth and state of Nollywood, his current and future projects, the inevitable question about his theory of the ‘conscience camera’, and his own place in the entire Nollywood landscape. But before our meeting, I needed to immerse myself in my understanding of the evolution of ‘Nollywood’, a tag Kelani would ultimately express some reservations about.

The history of Nigerian filmmaking can be traced to the early 1900s when nationalist Herbert Macaulay invited Balboa and Company, a film production company to show films at Glover Memorial Hall in Lagos. Palaver was the first feature film in colonial Nigeria to feature Nigerian actors. Produced in 1926, Palaver gave speaking roles to Nigerian actors and was a significant improvement from the silent films that were shown before. Such Nigerian representation accelerated the growth of cinema halls and cinemagoers. According to academic Oladipo Olubomehin, four cinema halls sprang up in Lagos, showing films twice a week. Among the films produced in that period were Sanders of the River (1935), a film about a district commissionerin colonial Nigeria; The Man from Morocco (1945), which explored a group of International Brigade members fighting in the Spanish Civil War, featuring Nigerian actor Orlando Martins; and Men of Two Worlds (1946), a film about an African music student who returns home to battle a witch doctor.

As the cinema culture grew in the 1940s, so did the cultural travelling theatre which enjoyed a large reception and following in South West Nigeria, particularly the Yoruba travelling theatre popularized by Hubert Ogunde, Kola Ogunmola, Duro Ladipo and Oyin Adejobi, all of whom led their theatre groups from location to location performing plays.

The 1950s saw the establishment and growth of the Nigerian Film Unit (NFU), a film corporation created to ‘decentralize colonial film production’, according to the UK-based organization Colonial Film. Many of the films shown in Nigerian cinemas were European, as part of the Colonial Film Unit’s mandate. Following Nigeria’s independence in 1960, the cinema culture expanded with an influx of American, Indian, Chinese and Japanese films. Towards the later part of the 1960s, Yoruba-language films began to gain ground as travelling theatres transitioned into screens.

The 1970s were pivotal to Nigeria’s film industry. An adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s 1965 play, Kongi’s Harvest, became Nigeria’s first indigenous film produced by a Nigerian production company. In 1972, the head of state, Yakubu Gowon, enacted the Indigenization Decree, which put control of many sectors into the hands of Nigerians and limited the participation of foreign players. This led to more than 300 theatres that were initially being controlled by foreigners, particularly Lebanese, to be transferred to Nigerian ownership. According to critic Ifeoluwa Olutayo, the 1970s oil boom had little effect on the growth of filmmaking in Nigeria in that period. Olutayo wrote in The Republic:

With the oil boom in the 1970s (1973 to 1983), there was a sharp increase in the inflow of revenue to Nigeria. Nigeria had previously been dependent on agriculture exports, and you could be forgiven for expecting the oil boom to trigger sizable investments in the creative sector, but this did not happen. The proliferation of indigenous films never took off … Thus, it is unsurprising that when Nigeria hosted the Festival of Art and Culture in 1977, only five Nigerian films were shown, while Hollywood had 21.

In the 1980s, there was a big shift in film distribution. The military regimes’ structural adjustment programme (SAP) and the fall of the naira affected the sustainability of cinemas, leading to many of them shutting down. This marked a growth in home video distribution through cassettes, which were cheaper as they were sold at an average of $2.15 per cassette. While Nigeria’s economic downturn was a factor in the decline of cinema, affordability meant more people preferred cassettes. In a 2009 interview, veteran actor Jide Kosoko explained that cinema-goers preferred to wait a couple of days to spend less money accessing the same films that were shown in cinemas.

Evil Encounter, a 1983 horror film released directly on television by Jimi Odumosu was a huge success, as it was heavily promoted before release and enjoyed massive TV viewership and the proliferation of pirated copies recorded from TV, especially in Alaba Market in Lagos—a hub that would ultimately become synonymous with film distribution. Other films soon followed the same template of massive marketing before release and then distribution.

The 1990s had a significant impact on the standardization and growth of Nigeria’s filmmaking. Nnebue’s 1992 film, Living in Bondage, is recognized by historians as the film that signalled the beginning of (Old) ‘Nollywood’, a term coined by Norimitsu Onishi, a New York Times reporter, in 2002 to represent the Nigerian film industry; a portmanteau of Nigeria and Hollywood. According to a 2006 article in The Economist, Nnebue was looking to dispose of a large stock of video cassettes and instead of selling them as blanks decided to record a film on them, which led to huge commercial success. The film sold 750,000 copies that led to imitations and a commercial film industry was birthed. The commercialization led to a boom in film production in the late 1990s to the early 2000s, making the industry one of the highest employers of labour in the country and contributing an estimated $600 million to the Nigerian economy annually.

In the 2000s, about four to five films were produced daily in Nigeria. By 2007, Nigeria had 6,841 registered video parlours and an estimated 500,000 unregistered ones. 700,000 home video copies were estimated to be produced daily and distributed through major hubs like Alaba and Onitsha, generating about ₦522 billion annually. As the production of films went up, the quality dropped and this was partly blamed on the huge commercialization, which had attracted those interested in the business but not the art of filmmaking. This led to a sort of breakaway faction where some filmmakers like Kelani and Tade Ogidan tried to distinguish themselves by making non-commercial films.

Jide Salawu, a principal instructor at the University of Alberta’s English and Film Studies Department described Kelani as an exceptional filmmaker who stood out by projecting tradition in the Nigerian cinematic ecosystem. He said:

Beginning from the last decade of the twentieth century that marked the origin of the Nollywood phenomenon, Kelani heralded a new canon that distinguished him as an artist of a different philosophy. His mastery is mostly demonstrated in the global politics of his work in terms of audience constituency, aesthetics and issues. This crossover quality from the Yoruba, the Nigerian, to the global suggests him as a force that iterated a new trajectory of Nigerian film historiography surfacing under the name ‘new Nollywood’ today.

However, as the costs of production went up and the naira fell, the home video era suffered a dip. Many consumers turned to renting films from ‘video clubs’ instead of buying the cassettes outright. Coupled with piracy, the film industry became less profitable and those who had gone into the industry for commercial reasons sought other business ventures.

Kunle Afolayan’s 2006 film, Irapada, heralded a revival in (new) Nollywood. It was screened at Silverbird Cinemas which was also a new cinema at the time. The success of the film was a revival of the cinema culture which had died with the rise of the home video era. While Irapada was successful, Afolayan’s The Figurine (2009), a game changer as it was commercially successful, won many awards and was screened internationally at film festivals. Figurine toured Berlin, New York, Rotterdam, Tarifa and Kampala and made ₦30 million during its eight-week theatrical run. The film, according to Afolayan, also ‘cut out piracy by 80 per cent.’ Its cinematic success led to the establishment of new cinemas. Genesis Deluxe Cinemas and Ozone Cinemas joined the market and much later, in the 2010s, Filmhouse Cinemas came onboard.

The growth of the cinema also attracted funding. In 2006, the Olusegun Obasanjo government launched Project Nollywood, an initiative providing ₦100 million to filmmakers. In 2010, the Goodluck Jonathan administration provided ₦30 billion to the ‘Creative and Entertainment Industry’ through the Bank of Industry. Three years later, the same government provided ₦3 billion to Nollywood to support the growth of the industry.

By the 2010s, Nollywood had become the third largest film industry in the world only behind America’s Hollywood and India’s Bollywood. Nollywood contributed 1.4 per cent to Nigeria’s economy due to improvements in distribution, according to Obinna Emelike in a 2017 Business Day report.

The 2020s ushered in a new layer to the distribution of Nigerian films with the entry of foreign streaming services with localized content. Netflix entered the market in 2020 with Netflix Naija while Prime debuted with Prime Video Naija in 2022. With the growth of internet penetration from 11 per cent in 2010 to 44 per cent in 2023 and smartphone adoption, which grew from five per cent in the 2000s to about 20 per cent in the 2020s, digital content consumption surged. The video-sharing service, YouTube, has also become an avenue for film distribution. On YouTube, audiences watch films for free while filmmakers receive a share of YouTube’s advertising revenue.

Currently a $6.4 billion industry with an annual average production of 2,500 films and 50,000 copies sold per film, Nollywood is the fastest-growing film industry in the world. According to PwC’s 2023, ‘African Entertainment and Media Outlook 2023-2027’, the entertainment industry, of which Nollywood is a significant segment, is projected to reach $12.9 billion in revenue by 2027.

Kelani is one of the few Nigerian filmmakers who can lay claim to having ‘seen it all’. From celluloid to home video to streaming platforms. From Old Nollywood to New Nollywood. His contributions to the industry have been significant, with over 50 years of filmmaking. His influence has been so prominent that Jonathan Haynes, writer and professor of English, described him as ‘the most celebrated Nigerian video film director and the one on whom the mantle of a film auteur fits most naturally.’ But where did it all begin for Kelani?

Tunde Kelani—or TK as family and acquaintances sometimes address him—has spent most of his life behind the camera. Born on 26 February 1948 in Lagos, he told me that at the age of five, his father sent him to live with his grandparents in Abeokuta—where he went to school—after the premier of the Western region, Obafemi Awolowo, introduced free education. ‘My father admired Awolowo and was ready to do anything Awolowo instructed,’ he said. ‘Thus, he did not hesitate to send me to Abeokuta to go to school at a young age.’

Moving to Abeokuta significantly shaped Kelani’s life as a person and as an eventual filmmaker. He was exposed to and immersed in Yoruba arts, literature, philosophy and spirituality, and how all aspects operate as a unit. He read all five books by renowned Yoruba novelist D O Fagunwa and fell in love with the world of books, especially myths. From the Yoruba Sango to the Greek Zeus to the Roman Jupiter, Kelani was fascinated by these characters and how similar they are across different cultures.

Kelani attended Oke-Ona Primary School in Ikija, Abeokuta and Abeokuta Grammar School for his primary and secondary school educations respectively. In that period he became exposed to photography, a passion that he would ultimately combine with his love for books to develop his signature filmmaking style. ‘I bought my first camera as a young boy and guarded it jealously,’ he said, ‘I treated it with respect and always had a small towel wrapped around it. It meant so much to me.’

After secondary school in 1966, Kelani knew he would not be pursuing university education as he could not wait to learn the technicality of using a camera properly and felt he would be confined by a university classroom. ‘It was not because I did not appreciate formal education, as I was a voracious reader,’ he said, ‘but I felt I could gain more learning and working directly with cameras.’

Kelani worked as a photographer apprentice at Dotun Okubanjo Studios on Broad Street in Lagos. It was there he realized that he was more interested in motion pictures. In 1970, he applied to join the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) in Ibadan and was selected. There he trained as a cameraman, but he had his sights set on much larger goals. He scrapped and saved every kobo he earned until 1976, when he paid his way to attending the London Film School. Kelani explained that in London he worked as a cleaner throughout his first year. He also took a sorting job at Mount Pleasant Post Office London during Christmas to complete his diploma course in art and technical filmmaking. He told me that the entire two-year programme was practical, and he did not see the insides of a classroom—something he found both interesting and grateful for as he learnt a lot within a short period.

The weekend his two-year course ended, in 1978, Kelani returned to Nigeria, excited to begin working. His first film was a co-production of Adebayo Faleti’s book, The Dilemma of Rev Father Michael (Ìdààmú Páàdì Mínkáílù). Kelani said of the film: ‘I did not consider it a success as I did not enjoy the multiple-producer model. Too many people were on it and things did not move quickly or get done properly.’ This made him decide to start his own production company and in 1991 Mainframe Production Opomulero was born. Two years later, the first film from the company, Ti Oluwa Nile 1, was released. The film was about two greedy men who enlist the help of a corrupt chief to sell an ancestral land. They use the legal system to win ownership of the land, which they then sell to a petroleum company. Following the aberration, evil occurrences happen to the men involved.

In 1994, Mainframe released the two-part film, Ayo Ni Mofe. A year later, it released Kòseégbé, the film about a customs chief who faces stiff resistance and almost loses his family and life in his attempt to sanitize the corrupt customs system. It was an adaptation of a stage play by writer, playwright, dramatist and scholar Akinwunmi Ishola. Kelani produced The White Handkerchief and O le ku in 1997 and 1998 respectively. 1999 saw the release of the acclaimed Ṣaworoìdẹ, which coincided with Nigeria’s return to democracy and cemented Kelani’s status as a distinctive filmmaker who was not swayed by the model of commercialized filmmaking that had saturated Nollywood at the time. Kelani said: ‘My films are adaptations of books that aligned with my own philosophy of addressing cultural and socio-political issues in society from a Yoruba worldview, embellished with music and dance.’ This was what cemented the partnership he developed with Ishola who wrote the drafts of the books that Kelani adapted in some of his earliest films such as Kòseégbé, Ṣaworoìdẹ, The Campus Queen and Ó le kú. Kelani explained that, ‘in some cases, the films predated the books as in the case of Ṣaworoìdẹ whose book was published in 2008, nine years after the film was released.’

In May 1999, Nigeria returned to democratic governance after years of military rule. Since the country gained independence in 1960, its political trajectory had been fractured by a brutal civil war and numerous (bloody) coups. By the time Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, the years of military interregnum had negatively affected several sectors of the country. This ranged from economic struggles exacerbated by years of austerity, loans and sanctions to brain drains as the best of the people fled the country.

1999 brought some respite for Nigeria politically as it was an opportunity for the people to once again decide who would govern them and the direction the country would take. There was the feeling of hope when former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in as president on 29 May 1999. But there was also uncertainty as to how long the fourth republic would last and whether it would be truncated by another military coup. By coincidence or by design, Kelani’s Ṣaworoìdẹ was released in 1999 and addressed long-standing, timely topics about governance, corruption, checks and balances, environmental degradation, and youth civic participation.

Ṣaworoìdẹ is a political drama film that tells the story of the people of Jogbo and their pact with Ṣaworoìdẹ, the brass bell talking drum which served as a check on the town’s kingship through the adé idẹ. A new king (Lapite) is crowned after forcefully opting out of getting an incision—an important rite that has prevented Jogbo kings from enriching themselves through the royal position. He finds out later that by opting out, he risks dying if the Ṣaworoìdẹ drum is played while he wears the adé idẹ crown. In a bid to protect himself, he orders the assassination of the family with the custody of the drum. Ayangalu, the custodian of the drum, escapes after his daughter Adeboro and son-in-law Adebomi are killed, though their son is spared.

The king in collaboration with his chiefs plunder the town’s resources by giving a logging company free reign to cut down any tree as long as the company remits money to their personal offshore accounts. The youths express their displeasure at the pillaging of the resources of the town and the king’s complicity. After numerous protests that yield nothing, they secure arms and steal the crown. Knowing that he is at risk of losing his life if the crown is away from the palace for 15 days, the king seeks help and finds it in the hands of the logging company, which incidentally had provided the youths with arms. The company seeks the intervention of the military in getting the crown back and they succeed. The military, led by their commander Lagata, under the guise of rescuing the town from tyranny, stages a coup and the king is killed. Lagata takes over as king and the chiefs also approach him, intimating to him the financial opportunities he stands to benefit from the town’s resources.

Lagata’s reign does not last as the youths ultimately seek Ayangalu’s help in displacing Lagata with Ṣaworoìdẹ. Although the plan temporarily fails when Ayangalu is arrested, Ayanniyi—his son who had also escaped the assassination—returns and plays the drum when Lagata is coronated and Lagata dies.

Ṣaworoìdẹ was released 25 years ago but continues to interest viewers and is often referenced as a standard for beautiful storytelling that is layered with meaning. Its themes span the corruption involved in kingmaking, military incursion into civilian rule, paternity fraud, societal decadence, environmentalism and the debate around vigilantism. Many have praised its acting, storytelling, cinematography and cultural significance. 25 years later, it seems the film was made to reflect Nigeria’s current socio-political realities, giving the film a sense of timelessness. The concept of accountability and how its suppression breeds tyranny is a major reflection of Nigeria today. The film and its sequel, Agogo Èèwọ̀, are hinged on the worldview that without effective checks, the state’s moral and socio-political systems will collapse, giving room for corruption (as in the case of Lapite), moral decadence (Olori Tinuola), environmental degradation and the rise of vigilantism. The film also addresses the role of the youths as active participants in politics; the place of the press in speaking truth to power, and importantly, the dangers of military governance. The film is so multi-layered that each viewing reveals a new important aspect of historical and/or contemporary Nigerian society.

Filmmaker and Kelani’s mentee Diji Aderogba believes that Ṣaworoìdẹ is not only an important, successful film but has also inspired filmmaking that emphasizes the need to hold the government accountable. He told me:

Ṣaworoìdẹ has inspired a lot of filmmakers. For years before I met and attended Tunde Kelani’s film school, I watched his films, particularly Ṣaworoìdẹ, and was inspired. It is one of if not TK’s best films. It has everything you want in a film, as it incorporates humour, knowledge, Yoruba language, cultural celebration—everything. TK’s influence is even seen in films made today. Kunle Afolayan, who I like to describe as the most successful filmmaker of this time, is a product of TK. If you talk about Old Nollywood, TK played a major role. If you talk about New Nollywood, TK and his mentees are also playing important roles. All these started from Ṣaworoìdẹ.

But is Ṣaworoìdẹ truly Kelani’s best film? What does the filmmaker himself think about the film and its impact? Was it a planned decision to release the film in the year Nigeria returned to democracy? Is there any plan to produce a third part of the film, as viewers have yearned for a long time? I sought answers to these questions during my visit to Kelani’s home in Abeokuta.

‘I don’t like the Nollywood tag,’ was the first thing Kelani said shortly after I got to his Abeokuta home. The atmosphere felt less cosy than industrious. The entryway doubled as a costume room while his office, which also served as a visitor’s waiting room, had several books placed around. I was impressed with the numerous cameras he had set up for livestreaming videos and later told him so. He responded proudly that he never stopped learning and made sure to attune himself to any new technology that would make his work better.

‘I don’t like the Nollywood tag,’ he repeated, ‘I prefer Yoruba cinema because the history of Yoruba theatre predates what is now considered Nollywood. But I have accepted it since that is what everyone calls [our films] even though it is limiting.’ He added that:

There was no need to borrow what the American film industry is called and call it something similar. For a while, what people called Nollywood was only the English-speaking films. Then the Yoruba films were added and that is all. We have too many diverse stories of different people who speak different languages to compress everything into Nollywood. The current setup does not give room to or recognizes those who speak minority languages in Nigeria, yet we believe Nollywood encompasses all Nigerian films. We should have Yoruba cinema, Igbo cinema and all other kinds of cinemas without putting them all into a box.

He had just finished breakfast when I arrived and while I was eager to talk about Ṣaworoìdẹ, I could tell he wanted to discuss more issues; he got to it almost immediately when he took a seat beside me. ‘I am very grateful because I am one of the lucky few people on earth who wanted to do something in their life—’ ‘—and did it,’ I interjected. But he shook his head. ‘And is doing it,’ he corrected me. ‘I have been fortunate to have discovered what I wanted to do at a young age, pursued it, and still doing it for more than 50 years with no distractions,’ he explained. ‘My life is fulfilling, and I am grateful.’

Kelani admitted that Ṣaworoìdẹ was a film that needed to be made but when I asked if it was his best film, he declined to answer. Instead, he told me he had the same connection to all his films as without that connection, he would not have made them in the first place. He noted that:

I love books, and they are the reason why I worship writers. Anyone who can sit down and write an entire brilliant story is a genius. Once I was in the US and I heard that [Chinua] Achebe was around, and I made sure to see him. I knelt in front of him and told him to bless me. That is how much I revere writers. As soon as I returned from London Film School, I started seeking out writers. I met Cyprian Ekwensi, Professor Femi Osofisan. The day I saw Professor Akinwunmi Ishola, it was through a chance meeting with his daughter. And when she introduced herself, I told her to take me to her father immediately, and that was the beginning. There are so many gems in Nigerian stories, which is why I feel sad when I see bad films. If filmmakers read, they will see the abundance of opportunities in books.

Filmmaking, for me, was an opportunity to tell people the stories I had read. Since I couldn’t tell each person I met about these interesting stories, I found an opportunity in filmmaking, as I could reach millions of people that way. In my case I was lucky to have met the authors of the books I adapted. In some cases, as in the case of Ṣaworoìdẹ, I had the opportunity to give the authors feedback on the drafts they shared with me and what I wanted them to include or expand. These were Yoruba writers who were immersed in the Yoruba culture, language and spirituality, and they were also scholars; they were geniuses, and we may never have people like that again.

For Kelani, adaptation is a way to complement the good work an author has done but it also involves going a step further to translate their vision into screen. ‘I have had writers call me to come and read their manuscripts, when they finished a story, for film consideration,’ Kelani said, ‘that is why I make sure I connect to the book first before attempting to make it into film.’

Kelani revealed that he made an adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel and that the entire production was done within a short period. But he has refused to release it for public viewing. ‘Through it, I learnt a few lessons. But I have plans to produce another adaptation titled “Sidi” based on the main character of the book.’

In the case of Ṣaworoìdẹ, Kelani had the opportunity to work with Professor Ishola on the draft and tapped into the Yoruba travelling theatre for the casting. While it was a coincidence that the film came out in the same year Nigeria returned to democracy, the issues addressed in the film were deliberate, as they not only reflect both a democratic and military government but also continue to speak to the Nigeria of today. Kelani revealed that the use of the logging company was a deliberate symbolism that encapsulated both the problem of environmental degradation and the neglect of host communities by companies seeking natural resources. ‘In reality, I was addressing oil companies since oil remains Nigeria’s main export. I did not want to draw the ire of the government so I represented it with logging companies.’

I pointed out that I was fascinated by how he used the film to show that while laws (Ṣaworoìdẹ) as well as checks and balances (the chiefs and the police) can exist, they could still be circumvented. I suggested that this might be why, in the film, the responsibility of defeating tyranny ultimately rested on the shoulder of the youths, a situation that mirrors the Nigeria of today. Kelani agreed and pointed my attention to the end of Agogo Èèwọ̀, where the youths celebrated after the corrupt chiefs were exposed:

You will notice that Adebayo Faleti spoke at the end of the film, reminding the youths not to celebrate too much but to have their cutlasses ready to cut down any evil that sprouts again. The same also happened in Campus Queen where young people went to war against institutionalized corruption both in the universities and in government. The youths have the power to change this country, but they need to recognize that power first. On whether Ṣaworoìdẹ is my best film, I leave that to the audience to be the judge, but there is no denying that it follows my interest in telling stories that reflect culture and social issues, and teach society while also celebrating Yoruba artistry.

Kelani confirmed that he will make Ṣaworoìdẹ 2 in the coming years and described Agogo Èèwọ̀ as the continuation of Ṣaworoìdẹ. He explained that the plot will reflect 25 years of Jogbo since the corrupt chiefs were punished and how the society has reacted to socio-political and economic changes. The filmmaker admitted that he and Ishola had mused over the idea of a prequel titled Iyan Esuru before Professor Ishola’s death, but he has decided to work on the second instalment of Ṣaworoìdẹ.

At 76, Kelani is not thinking of slowing down. He said he could not imagine himself retired without anything to do. ‘Luckily for me, I am in an industry where I cannot be forced to retire; I have lots of stories to tell.’ Kelani pointed to the scattered books on his desk and shelf and explained that he continues to read to enrich himself and find new inspiration for films. He added that:

I don’t stop reading. Although I did not attend university I value books and education. My next film is going to be an adaptation of Kola Akinlade’s Àgbàkò nílé tẹ́tẹ́. It reminds me of the James Hadley Chase police procedural, and I told the author how fascinated I was with the style because it is not very common. I may shorten the film title to Àgbàkò, but I have not decided yet.

Kelani revealed that when young and aspiring filmmakers talk to him about their aspirations, he encourages them to read wide and is sometimes surprised at how little some of them read. ‘Where do you want to draw from if you don’t read?’ he asked rhetorically. He recalled that when protégé and filmmaker Kunle Afolayan approached him to discuss his interest in filmmaking, he encouraged him to take education and books important—a piece of advice Afolayan took seriously. Kelani told me:

You can see how Kunle [Afolayan] has turned out? Even in the business aspect of filmmaking, where I have failed, he has done extremely well. Although if you ask him, he gives me a lot of credit for how he has turned out, but the truth is he did it himself with dedication and seriousness.

Kelani explained that the Ifa corpus is another source of storytelling he plans to tap into. Beyond spirituality, Kelani mentioned that the divinatory system has an abundance of stories, and one only needs to study it with a keen and open mind to see it.

When I read Kelani’s email out to him, emphasizing the part where he talked about lack of conscience in the current film industry and his ‘conscience camera’ theory, he laughed and blamed his choice of words on the time of the night he composed the email. He, however, said with a sense of seriousness that there are filmmakers who are doing excellent jobs at the moment, but warned that many are in the industry for the wrong reasons. According to Kelani:

There has never been a greater and better time in history to hold the government and society more accountable than we have now. With a mobile phone, you can shoot a film and distribute it on different platforms. Why is it now when people have the power in their hands they don’t know how to use it or what to do with it? It is appalling. People are either telling the wrong stories or telling the right stories badly.

When we released Agogo Èèwọ̀ in 2002, we invited Bola Tinubu to the screening. There was concern that it might cause a problem due to the political nature of the film and its criticism of the system. When I submitted Campus Queen to the National Film and Video Censors Board, it was rejected eight times because they felt it embarrassed the government. Now, it seems the board has nothing to do because people are not telling the kind of stories that speak the truth to power and confront the situation of Nigeria as they should.

Kelani argued that filmmakers have the responsibilities of being the voice of the people and of drawing the attention of society to salient issues. He noted that the camera should be a tool for making society look inward and reflect, and that technology has made the process easier. When I asked him why there seemed to be a shift in the kind of films produced now, he said perhaps it was based on what the paying customer wants:

At the end of the day, filmmaking is still a business. I have failed in that aspect many times but was lucky to have people who believed so much in me and helped me to get up. I guess when you look at it from a business angle, filmmakers are giving out what the paying customers demand. Maybe I should not be too hard on those telling those kinds of unimportant stories if the consumers like it. The day the consumers say they don’t want will be the day there will be a major shift.

From humble and rough beginnings, Nollywood has become the second-largest film industry in the world (upstaging Bollywood) and the largest in Africa. Film villages are springing up everywhere, encouraging the telling of historical films, biopics and mythic re-enactments. Film records are getting broken every year. In 2023, Funke Akindele became the first filmmaker to surpass a billion naira in revenue from her film, A Tribe Called Judah. While the future looks interesting, with more independent film companies emerging and experimental filmmaking taking off, Kelani believes that the film industry is not immune from the Nigerian reality:

Insecurity remains a major problem in Nigeria, and it also affects the film industry. Foreign investors, for example, will be wary of the situation and make decisions based on it. For example, if a Western film company wants to make a film based in Africa, there is a high chance they would not shoot the film in Nigeria due to insecurity and instead do it in another African country. We need the government to take insecurity seriously as it affects the film industry too.

Kelani also identified artificial intelligence as a development that will affect the film industry and felt that those filmmakers not prepared for the AI era will lose their jobs and relevance. He advocated for those in the industry to be prepared to further educate and train themselves so as not to be left behind.

I never stopped learning so since AI became a thing, I have been looking at how it is affecting our industry because you cannot stop it. You are either prepared or you will be swept aside. I learnt to use different kinds of cameras as existing ones went out of vogue. I have a partnership with YouTube which means publishing on the platform regularly. I learnt to do that myself so I can livestream and also give lectures to students abroad. If I did not upgrade my knowledge, such opportunities would not come. I urge those in the industry to be ready as the wave of AI hits us. People will lose their jobs. Maybe we will be making films remotely or creating characters’ voices from scratch. Whatever the innovation that comes, we must be ready to adapt.

I asked Kelani if he had any regrets as a filmmaker who has been in the industry for more than 50 years, and he nodded almost immediately.

Yes, I regret not going into the sort of partnership that would have allowed someone else to focus on the business side of the industry while I focused on the creative side, as that would have made my works more profitable. While I do not regret dedicating my entire life to telling stories, I believe things could have gone badly if I did not have supportive family and benefactors who were ready to pick me up each time I fell. My greatest joy undeniably remains making the kind of films people will talk about, learn from and identify as important to society.

‘Like Ṣaworoìdẹ?’ I asked. ‘Yes, like Ṣaworoìdẹ,’ he responded with a slow nod and suddenly broke into a song as if he just remembered something poignant. Perhaps like me, once in a while, he also marvels at the greatness of the film he made 25 years ago. I recognize the song from Ṣaworoìdẹ, sung by Adebayo Faleti who played the role of Baba Opalanba. The old palace staff warned that there would be repercussions if those in office continued to misuse their power.

Yìí ó máa lẹ́yìn, yìí ó máa lẹ́yìn

Ọ̀rọ̀ yìí yóò máa lẹ́yìn àjàntíele⎈