The Embassy of the United States of America in Abuja has commended the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) for its efforts and commitment towards the development and growth of Nigeria’s film industry, which has continued to attract the attention and admiration of the global cultural community.
In a press statement made available to TCN by Brian Etuk, NFC’s Director of Public Affairs, Julie Mckay, the new Cultural Affairs Officer of the US Embassy in Nigeria made this assertion when she met with Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, NFC’s Managing Director/Chief Executive in Abuja on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.
Mackay, at the meeting said that the Cultural Office of the Embassy has noted with much enthusiasm the numerous domestic and foreign partnership windows auspicated in the past few years by the NFC and pronised to increase its support mechanisms for it to achieve more in the delivery of its mandate. She praised the ingenuity of Nigerian filmmakers in achieving the successes recorded so far, promising to support stakeholders’ quest in changing the narratives of Nigeria from being just the second largest producer of films to catching up with quality content production for the continent and global audience.
Nigerian films should be able to compete at fora such as the Oscars, she said.
The Cultural Affairs Officer also assured that efforts would be made to facilitate more US film production companies, producers and directors, as well as training institutions into the Nigerian film industry. The NFC, she said, will be assisted to deliver on its film training and capacity building programmes, with the National Film Institute (NFI) in focus; and on other programmes and projects being undertaken and in its service delivery.
A comprehensive collaborative support for the NFC will be revealed after a visit to its headquarters and tour of its facilities in Jos, where the National Film Institute (NFI), the National Film Video & Sound Archives (NFVSA) are located, by the US Cultural Affairs Officer.
Earlier, Dr. Maduekwe had congratulated Mackay on her appointment as the US Cultural Affairs Officer in Nigeria. He said NFC was determined to sustain initiatives that would drive the optimal performance and contributions of the sector to national development. “NFC, as a lead agency in the sector will continually position itself to lead the pack in policy issues and partnerships that will help develop the sector”, Dr. Maduekwe said. In the past five years, “we have focused on building healthy partnerships across board with countries, institutions and like-minded agencies, organisations, companies and film commissions that will help us actualize our goals of human capital enhancement, film training capabilities, innovative capacity building and film production infrastructure development in Nigeria”.
Specifically, the trajectory of NFC’s partnerships is focused on domestic, including inter-country film collaboration and production, capacity building, film students professional exchanges, technology transfer opportunities, film co-production, partnerships and collaboration, expertise in film festival development and sustainability, inter-country content distribution and sales, access to project funding opportunities, co-operation in film festivals and film weeks organisation in partner countries and many more.
Maduekwe equally conveyed NFC’s commitment to utilizing opportunities that will be provided by the US – Embassy through the Cultural Office, for the holistic and sustainable development of Nigeria’s film industry.
At the meeting were Bella Ndubuisi of the US Embassy; Halima Oyelade, Juliet Archibong and Astone Danjuma of the NFC.