Madu Chikwendu has said that the Lagos International Film Festival (LIFF), which he organises annually, is a labour of love he is undertaking for the Nigerian Film Industry otherwise referred to as Nollywood.
He was fielding questions from TheNiche on why the event did not take place this year, at President Goodluck Jonathan’s Evening with Creatives in Lagos penultimate Friday.
In fact, the first president of the Association of Movie Producers (AMP) in the country explained that the next LIFF will be in March 2015.
One only hopes that the death knell is not sounding on such a festival, one of the very first to bring together practitioners in the industry, as one cannot over-emphasise the importance of such gatherings to the individual practitioners and the industry as a whole.
LIFF started as the National Conference on Entertainment in the 1990s. In 2005, it was rebranded as African Video Expo (AVEX), and it took place at the National Stadium. In 2006, it was re-launched as a festival and a market. That was when it became LIFF, accompanied by the African movies market.