Abuja-based filmmaker, Haruna Etubi, has charged Nigerian filmmakers to endeavour to touch lives with their works.
He was speaking during the recent directing/acting masterclass held as a component of the Jos Festival of Theatre in Plateau State.
“Our works should not just be about glamour; it should be more about touching lives. That should be the dream of everyone in the arts, legacy, we should want our works to live forever,” the graduate of estate management, who returned to school to study theatre arts due to his passion, said.
But how did his passion for filmmaking come about? And his answer is that he got a whole lot of education from the television. Way back then, the television was not something you could find in every home, he stated; but he was fortunate to have one as a kid and it became his best friend.
“The things I saw on television; sitcoms, movies, all these things inspired me into the art world,” he explained.
Apart from studying theatre arts at the University of Abuja, Etubi also studied film at the New York Film Academy in the United States of America (U.S.A.).
As someone who has taken the road, he is quick to say that it is not always smooth for art, particularly in the country like Nigeria. For him, that is why each artiste needs to first understand that it is a lifestyle.
“You don’t just say, let me do this once in a while; it is a lifestyle you adopt,” he said.
Emphasising that it is not going to be rosy, he recalled how he and a whole lot of people had the dream of someday going to study theatre arts, but most of them walked away.
The last from a family of seven boys said he has been blessed with a family that did not only allow him choose what he wanted to do, but also gives him all the support an artiste can desire from a family.
“As at that time, it really wasn’t going smooth; so not everybody was comfortable with me leaving estate management, which was something that was beginning to thrive in the early 2000, to say I want to do entertainment. It wasn’t something everybody I know was cool about. As much as my family supported, I knew what it was like from friends, relatives and other people,” Etubi stated.
He counts that among the many sacrifices an artiste has to make owing to the Nigerian environment in which they find themselves.
“Elsewhere in the western world, you will see people that would encourage you. There are also programmes that help develop people in the art. But here (in Nigeria), you just have to do what you have to do for yourself. Most times, this discourages a lot of talented young people,” the filmmaker lamented.
To break into the Nigerian film industry, Etubi has a workable solution: to start doing free jobs.
“But do them for the experience because if you gain the experience, you may be well ahead of that person you are working for today in the nearest future,” he said.
A whole lot of people, he said, have lost it over money and the result is that creativity suffers.
Etubi, who is also known as Zeus, said that every day the quality of content is dwindling, while practitioners focus on making money to the detriment of the industry.
“We no longer bother about how good what we are doing is; how does it affect our environment, the implications. Most of our art these days is for money. I have turned down several jobs because when I take a look at the script and realise that what they want to do is shallow, I advise that we need to rewrite the script. What you often hear is, ‘that is the problem with you theatre arts guys, you always want to be too professional’,” he said.