For a year and half, Michelle Bello has been taking her film, Flower Girl, around the world. The award-winning filmmaker is ready to release it on DVD by December. In this interview with Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH, she talks about her passion for filmmaking.
Has Flower Girl exceeded the expectations you have for it?
God has just been good; he has done abundantly and exceedingly above all I can ever expect for Flower Girl. I mean I prayed, the cast and crew prayed, a lot of work went into Flower Girl. It has been four years since the script was written. The story was even developed. We have taken the movie round the world, and it has been successful. So, I just thank God for Talking Drum Entertainment that distributed it, and Mahmood Ali-Balogun that did the re-cut for the UK release. So it has just been incredible and I am so proud.
This is not the first time you are winning; your first film, Small Boy, won two AMAAs. Apart from the fact that you have given God most of the credit, is there something you would say you did right, like training?
I think it is a lot of passion. I love storytelling and, yes, training. You have got to get the education and the right training for it, because it is a specific skill. You can’t just pick up a camera and call yourself a director; you have to go to school or train yourself, read books online, go on a film set and look at what the director is doing. But it does take training and education, and I think that is where a lot of people get it wrong; they think they don’t need to learn anything.
In this industry, there are new ways of doing things with different platforms. You have to keep abreast with what is going on in the film industry around the world; not just here in Nigeria. So I think that is important.
When my friends are going out to parties, I am at home working. Dedication and having the right team around you are needed. I had an amazing cast and crew that are so dedicated. They saw my vision, and I am so grateful. I just had the right partners. Ali-Balogun and Talking Drum Entertainment, who saw that movie and its potential were like: wow, this is amazing. Of course, the fans just loved it. So many people I bump into say: I went to see your movie three times, four times; I took my family to see it. People just fell in love with the film.
Did you have a huge budget for publicity?
No, not at all. I mean, we don’t even have one per cent of a Hollywood budget – at least $100 million for the movie. So, we have to use things like social media platforms, newspapers, blogs, magazines and word of mouth. I think for Flower Girl, the main success in terms of marketing was word of mouth and on blogs as well because when we released the teaser before the movie even came out; before even the trailer came out, it was huge on Bellanaija.com, where we got 18,000 hits in two days. And I was just like wow, everyone was amazed. That wasn’t even the main trailer, and the movie hadn’t even come out yet. So I think just using platforms like blogs, social media and, of course, the newspaper, radio and things like that really helps when you are on a low budget trying to market a movie.
You must be working on your next movie already; do you want to talk about that?
All I can say it that I am developing my next movie. I am very excited and it is going to be much bigger than Flower Girl by God’s grace; it is going to have more international cast. So I am very excited about it, and it is in development right now. So it will be ready when it is ready. In the meantime, Flower Girl is going to be coming out on DVD by Christmas, by God’s grace; so everyone should go get it as Christmas present for the family and friends.
Are you the one who did the script for this new project as well?
No, I am not the writer; I am focusing on directing mainly.
Is your brother, who worked on the script with you, the one writing this one?
No, another writer is going to be involved.
How did you get the script; did you call for scriptwriters to send in scripts?
For me, it is about researching different writers, their style, their skill and if they love the story. There is no point in writing the story if they don’t love it. I met with an international writer and he loved the story. We were bouncing off ideas and we were all very excited, and I knew right then that we had something there. I was excited.
When you say international for your next project, is this the time Nollywood begins to collaborate with Hollywood?
My writer is not a Hollywood writer; he is a Nigerian abroad. Definitely, I think in the future there will be more collaborations with Hollywood and Nollywood. We will still be doing our own films, our own stories, but partnering with Hollywood because, at the end of the day, we want our films to be shown around the world. Not just in Nigeria, not just in Africa, but around the world. Look at 12 Years a Slave. For me, that is the future of our movies, and it will take a while for us to get there. We need a lot of things to happen before we get to that level, but by God’s grace it will happen soon.
Old Nollywood, new Nollywood or new Nigerian film; which of these three would you say you belong to?
(Laughter) All the terminologies are even confusing. What I would say is I like to do movies. I am a filmmaker who tells stories. So, for me, it is all about creating great content that audiences around the world would love, relate to the story and the characters. That is what I am focused on doing in every of my projects. And that is what I have done. If I am not passionate about the story, I am not going to shoot the film. It is as simple as that. The story comes first. For me, it is about telling great stories. It is not about saying I am this, I am that. I am an artiste; so as an artiste, we are free to create our art.
Most great stories have great music; in some climes, the music is released separately as a soundtrack album. You didn’t do that with Flower Girl, although there is music. What happened?
We felt that we have some songs that were already out there before, like Lynxx and Wizkid. Those songs were already released. There were just a few that hadn’t been released. But I said that if we ever monetise the songs, obviously, they will get a cut of whatever we do. So, there is option in the future of possibly releasing the soundtrack.
Would you say that you have recouped your investment in Flower Girl?
I would say, let’s wait till the DVD release. We still haven’t finished exploiting Flower Girl; so I won’t be able to say anything until we finish all rounds in terms of distribution.