10/4/2008
Berks
Film Fest 2008: Interview with Jamie Meltzer
By Patty
Mahlon
Reading Eagle Internet Services
Virtually
non-existent in 1990, the Nigerian film industry (“Nollywood”)
is now the third largest in the world. Jamie Meltzer,
a film professor at Vassar and the director of the beloved
PBS song-poem documentary “Off The Charts”
explores the little known yet burgeoning movie phenomenon
in his latest film“Welcome to Nollywood,”
which plays at the R/C Theaters Reading Movies 11 &
IMAX Saturday Oct. 4 at 4:45 pm as part of the Berks
Movie Madness Film Festival. Admission is $7.
Patty
Mahlon: Why did you decide to make a film about the
Nigerian film industry?
Jamie
Meltzer: I was finishing up the “Off
The Charts” documentary, which basically took
me four years to complete. “Off The Charts”
was a great filmmaking process for me, but it was also
a very frustrating process because it took so long.
There was a lot of fundraising involved and I had to
overcome all these obstacles just to make the film.
At
the height of my frustration toward the end of it, when
I really just wanted to be done with the film, I read
about Nollywood and these filmmaker who were making
films in two to three weeks and then immediately getting
the films out on video to their audiences. These are
filmmakers creating an industry with absolutely no support
from their government – independent filmmakers
– who have made an incredible market all on their
own terms. And I thought, wow, first of all, this is
a very surprising industry and idea out of Africa, because
I haven’t heard of it, and it breaks a lot of
stereotypes. And secondly, I think this is a good lesson
for American independent filmmakers. I wanted to learn
how they do it.
So
I started contacting people in Nigeria. I didn’t
learn a whole lot until I actually went there and spent
two months filming different directors.
PM:
What was it like shooting in Nigeria?
Jamie
Meltzer: It was great in a sense, because I
was very warmly welcomed. Everyone was excited that
this American filmmaker was there, even though they
didn’t quite know what I was all about. They were
very excited about someone who had an interest and a
respect for what they did. They saw it as an opportunity
to exchange information.
The
actual filming was really difficult. In the film you
see this in the way that the lights go out every couple
hours. That was something I, as a filmmaker, had to
contend with as well. I didn’t have as much practice
as they did, and I didn’t expect it like they
did. It took me all day to get through an interview
or follow someone around, when if I was working on a
documentary in the US that would take maybe an half
hour.
So
I basically had to roll with it and make the best of
what I had. I sort of absorbed what I saw and what they
did and the way they molded their approaches and their
styles to meet the circumstances at hand. It gave me
a better sense of them as filmmakers just trying to
make a film there myself.
PM:
How many Nollywood films had you watched before going
into this?
Jamie Meltzer: I looked at
30 or 40 of them that were sent from a contact of mine
there who’s a producer. He sent me all the ones
he thought were interesting or popular. The first thing
I did was get a sense for what the genres were, and
what kind of films these are. There’s a pretty
wide array.
I
started to become less interested in the idea of explicitly
showing what the films were about and going through
all the genres. That sort of study of Nollywood didn’t
really interest me. What was interesting to me was the
way the industry was established. And then when I got
there, I saw the struggle to overcome all the obstacles
I just talked about. So my films is less an exploration
of the films of Nollywood and more a look at the enterprise
of it all. It’s about the formation of Nollywood
and how that happened.
The
other thing that happened when I got all these videos:
a lot of the films were the same. Like Hollywood, their
films got predictable after a while. I looked at one
film in particular by Izu Ojukwu, who ended up being
one the main filmmakers in my film. And his film was
totally different in style and visual approach. Everything
about it completely stood out. He went against everything
I had heard about what Nollywood was. I mean, it was
clear he didn’t shoot these things very quickly
as throwaway pieces. It was clear he spent a lot of
time visualizing and lighting them in a way all the
other films didn’t. So I realized he would have
to be an important character. And I was able to get
in touch with him once I got there.
PM:
What happened to his film “Laviva?” I looked
up the film on IMDB and I saw it had a release date.
Jamie
Meltzer: “Laviva” didn’t
really come out yet. It’s a very complicated market
there. Since I left, he’s made at least two or
three films a year. So he’s made something like
10 to 12 films since I left. Most Nollywood filmmakers
make a lot more than that in a year. He’s won
many awards. He won the equivalent to best picture at
the Academy Awards for the picture he made after “Laviva.”
So he’s now a very famous, well-respected filmmaker
there. He was just on the cusp of that when I was filming
him.
“Laviva”
itself is very precious to him. It’s a very personal
film. In my film you see he’s putting his own
money into it. He really put his heart into it. The
stakes were high. So he’s waiting to roll it out
at the exact right time in Nigeria. He wants it to be
the film that might change the way people look at him
and the way they look at the industry. It’s already
been in a couple festivals with my film. It premiered
at a film festival here in California, and it got a
really good reception. There were more people at that
film then there were at my documentary! So I think there
is some interest in Nollywood.
PM:
Are all Nollywood films shot in English?
Jamie
Meltzer: Yes, in the industry I followed. Within Nollywood are
several different industries. In terms of language,
Nigeria is comprised of many different tribal communities,
like the Yoruba and the Igbo, which is sort of the business
class. And then there’s the Hausa; they live in
the north and are Muslim. They all have their own languages.
And then they all speak English as well, because there
are so many different languages at play that you have
to have some sort of common ground. There’s also
the fact that Nigeria was colonized by the English.
So the national language is English, and the main film
industry I followed – which is considered the
mainstream Nollywood – makes its films in English.
There are other industries that film in tribal languages.
I decided not to cover that because it really wouldn’t
make sense for an American audience. It would create
a whole layer of distance that didn’t need to
be there.
PM:
How many films has Chico/Mr. Prolific made since you
were there?
Jamie
Meltzer: Oh, I don’t even know. I can’t even keep
track, and he doesn’t always say. He embraces
his name “Mr. Prolific.” I think at the
same time he might be a little embarrassed. Like someone
says in the film, “What does he think this is,
a bakery?” He’s sometimes a little shy about
talking about how much he’s really done. It’s
hard to find out, because there are so many films put
on the marketplace. He’s probably done at least
20 or 30 films since then. I know he’s also moved
more into TV production since then.
In
fact, when I returned to Nigeria the second time –
I was in Nigeria two different times over two different
summers – the second time I returned I already
knew all these guys very well. I ended up starring in
a soap opera that Chico was making, just because I was
around. Basically, I owed him a favor because I had
him in my film. It was quite an experience to have the
tables turned. And later I found out that the soap opera
aired and all these people saw it. Apparently, it was
well-received. Although I don’t think I’m
a very good actor.
PM:
What was your role in the show? Was it an action role?
Jamie
Meltzer: My role was sort of this obnoxious American who’s
trying to marry a Nigerian woman. I’m only about
5’7”, and the woman was 6’2”,
so it was sort of a ridiculous visual. I go to meet
her parents, sort of flail around, and then get in a
fight with some Nigerian fellow who’s not very
happy about my interest in her. It was a whole cross-cultural,
interracial thing going on. It was interesting. I felt
it was very stereotypically and almost – not really
racist – but very stereotypical in terms of its
look at white America. I almost thought, “OK,
this is just desserts for all the representations of
Africans and African Americans in the mainstream media,
Hollywood, and even independent films for the last hundred
years or so.
PM:
When you were following Izu and things were starting
to get salty with the crew, how did you handle that?
Jamie
Meltzer: I’m a teacher, and I can only
film for a certain amount of time in the summer before
I have to go back. So what happened was: we were there
for two months and came to the very end of the summer.
I had been waiting three weeks at that time for Izu’s
production to start up. There was a lot of tension and
a lot of waiting around. Eventually I had to leave.
So I actually trained a Nigerian guy I had been using
as a production assistant. He was a great production
assistant and I ended up training him on camera. I trained
another guy on how to do sound. And I left them all
my equipment. When I left, Izu’s production had
really just started, so a lot of the footage in maybe
the last ten minutes of the film were shot by the production
assistant. It has a certain level of intimacy with the
crew that I wouldn’t have been able to get, because
I was closer to the director. So when they’re
yelling at the camera, and when there’s all this
tension between the camera and the crew and there's
a lot of action you wouldn’t expect to see play
out in front of someone not from there, it’s filmed
by someone from there.
PM:
You said earlier that with "Off The Charts"
you got bogged down with fundraising when trying to
get your film circulating. Did you have to deal with
any of that? Or did the immediacy of what you were filming
prevent some of that?
Jamie
Meltzer: Like I said before, one of the things
that attracted me to Nollywood was that the independent
filmmakers have achieved something that we have not.
We don’t have an independent film industry that’s
as vibrant as Nigeria’s. And Nigeria took digital
video and got mileage out of it that no one expected.
That was my approach, too. I took a low-cost video cameras
and equipment and traveled with just two other people
and made this film with a tiny crew in just two months.
Then, of course, I planned on finishing it within six
months after that and then really ramp up the entire
finishing schedule. But it did take a long time. I started
in 2004, but it didn’t play any festivals until
2007. So I shaved off a year of time compared to "Off
The Charts," but I still think I need to do some
shaving in terms of projects from conception to completion.
PM:
Do you have another project in the pipeline?
Jamie
Meltzer: I’m finishing up a short documentary
about a town in Mexico seven hours south of the US border
that created a theme park that would attract people
from all over Mexico to come out to this town and go
on a simulated border crossing, where they would pretend
to cross the border. They intend it as a way to raise
awareness for what people go through crossing the border.
It should be at festivals within the next year.
PM:
How has Welcome to Nollywood been received? Has it increased
interest in Nigerian films?
Jamie
Meltzer: I don’t think it’s increased
interest. The Nigerian industry is just so young. If
you think about it, the time when the US industry was
this young. I mean, you’re talking 1903 before
DW Griffith; before the language or grammar of film
had been established. You had one-shot wonders. Poorly
edited films. Three-minute films.
The
Nigerian industry is really in its infancy. It’s
still defining itself. I think in the next ten years
the industry will really land on its feet in terms of
having a place our world of media. That’s what’s
left to conquer. They conquered Africa. The next frontier
is our landscape. And I think it’ll be a few years,
but I think Nollywood films will play in festivals,
theaters, and might eventually start winning Academy
Awards.
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