FILM MARKETERS ARE TOO OVERBEARING- BABA EGUNLETI

By Omowonuola Odusanya

The legendary actor and high chief of Elerin Adubi, Egba Owu, Ogun state, Moses Omilani Adubi popularly known as Egunleti has chastised the Nigerian film marketers in what he termed, overbearing attitude and unprofessional conduct in dictating for film producers, hence destroying the formidable culture of filmmaking that was bestowed on the filmmakers by their frontrunners.

Baba Egunleti made this point while fielding questions in an online TV interview that was conducted by Alaroye and monitored by shoots.ng not quite long. According to him, “Whoever will do a movie now must have enough money because the marketers have hijacked the film industry. In those days, we are the ones who will do the film, we are the ones who will censor, we will also be the ones to look for marketers to sell the movie.”

In his words, Egunleti lamented the imposition of actors on producers, “Marketers were answerable to us, but now marketers are our dictators because since they took over the industry they now oppress us. If you say this movie is good, they will say why not take this one out, why not put this person there. Are they the ones who wrote the story? If you put Tiamiyu here, they will say that is why we can accept your work, why not use Mufu? Mufu is the one everyone is using now. If Mufu is trending, does that mean Tiamiyu cannot rise too?” he queried

He however reiterated the fact that, late Hubert Ogunde had warned film producers to be careful and watchful to avoid the take over of the industries by the money bags. “These are the things Ogunde said before he died. He said ‘If we are not careful, the rich will take over the movie industry. And they truly took over”’.

Egunleti in the interview was very optimistic about the future of youths and Yoruba film industry in Nigeria, “The future of Yoruba movie industry will be good, we pray it will be good because we are becoming famous. But we appeal to our children they should be friendly and love one another. It is where love abides that God dwells. They should not forget us. Because a person going to the farm who ask for his father to be murdered in the farm has forgotten that he too will die on the farm one day. That is what we call law of Karma.

The veteran thespian started acting in the 1950s at his school’s events. 1986 was when acting made him famous and began to pay well. “1986 was when I did my first movie that gave me that name Egunleti. It was titled Ojuoro, it is my story because my father was a masquerade worshipper. So I put myself in the position of people who reject the masquerade as a cultural element because of the advent of modern religion, Christianity,” he said

Picture credits – Internet