Hidden wealth in documentary films

Popular film producer, Femi Odugbemi, throws light on documentary film making at a festival recently organised by iREP, writes AKEEM LASISI

If documentary films are a drug, Femi Odugbemi has taken them and found out that they are potent. That is why he has the confidence to recommend them to young people who have interest in the film industry. This is evident in an inspiring experience he recently had on his work, Oriki, a documentary on Yoruba praise chant.

Organisers of  a festival where Oriki was recently shown abroad twice paid him some £7,000 – £3, 500 for each show. This is apart from a travelling allowance fee sent to him since he could not make the festival.

The Ondo State-born film maker shared the tale with some youths at a lecture he gave them during the iREP documentary film festival recently held in Lagos. The festival powered by Odugbemi and journalist/art and culture advocate, Mr. Jahman Anikulapo, featured film shows, dialogue and ‘stampede’ in different venues that included Victoria Island -based Terra Kulture.

It was, however, at the lecture held at Freedom Park, where media executive and veteran administrator, Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun, also spoke on the subject, that Odugbemi addressed the business, art and science of documentary film production.

In exploring the economic, educational and entertaining potential of documentary movies, Odugbemi said, the producer must observe some rules, though. While there is the need to pay professionals such as doctors and lawyers to get required information, all the producer may need to give other interviewees is an honorarium. On no account should he, however, pay criminals to get facts.

He said, “Do not break a law to make a film. You must beware of contempt of court. You do not injure or cause injury to establish facts.”

Another important point stressed by Odugbemi, whose other documentaries include Bariga Boy, is that any documentarist who wants to engage children for any aspect of production must obtain permission from their parents.

“The law assumes that a child is innocent. He or she can be manipulated in terms of the information he is required to give or action he is required to take. So, the producer must get a written permission from parents.”

He stressed that the permission must be signed by the primary authority, which is the father; so that even if the mother signs it, it must be established that the father gave the concession or that he is not available – as in being dead, for example.

Odugbemi also  enjoined the would-be documentary film producers to get appropriate permission and give credit if another person’s music is used in the documentary.

At the iREP stampede anchored by Anikulapo and attended by stakeholders that include Communication for Change founder, Sandra Obiago, and Mahmood Ali-Balogun, the Director of the Institute of African Studies, Paris, Prof. Jean-Paul Colleyn, presented a keynote titled African Cinemas and the Frontiers of Documentary. Some of the participants, nevertheless, expressed frustrations that documentary films have a limited market while supports hardly comes whenever required. Yet, Obiago noted that some successful individuals and corporate organisations, who want to invest in posterity,  do support good documentary initiatives.