Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Artsville

By Toyin Akinosho
13 August 2017   |   3:45 am
Nigerian filmmakers, TV producers and music labels are now entitled to apply for Pioneer Status Incentives from the Nigerian government. Motion picture, video and television programme production, distribution, exhibition...

PHOTO: google.com/search

Nigerian Filmmakers, Music Producers Now Entitled To Tax Holiday
Nigerian filmmakers, TV producers and music labels are now entitled to apply for Pioneer Status Incentives from the Nigerian government. Motion picture, video and television programme production, distribution, exhibition and photography and Music production, publishing and distribution are among the 27 new industries that qualified for tax holiday after the administrative suspension on processing Pioneer Status Incentives (PSI) applications. Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, said in Abuja last week that the pioneer status initiative seeks to enhance the survival, profitability and sustainability of beneficiary companies. Pioneer Status Incentive is a tax holiday which grants qualifying industries and products relief from the payment of corporate income tax for an initial period of three years, extendable for one or two additional years as provided for under the Industrial Development (Income Tax Relief) Act, No 22 of 1971 (IDA). Yewande Sadiku, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) said that the reforms have brought further clarity, predictability and process efficiency to the PSI regime”. Ms. Sadiku, a banker who has raised funds for the production of a movie, before taking the NIPC job, said that her agency will “continue the reform process as we plan to take the PSI application process online. We will also engage with relevant stakeholders with a view to updating the existing legislations.”

In Alter Ego, Omotola Delivers, But This Is Still Very Nollywood
There’s no doubt about Omotola Jalade Ekeinde’s star quality in Alter Ego, which has just wound down at Cinemas. The film has a meaningful message; the passionate law attorney, Ada Igwe (Omotola Jalade Ekeinde), focuses her law practice on seeing sex offenders, especially child rapists, go to jail. When the loopholes in the system allow offenders to go scot free, this committed activist gets punishment for the perpetrators through other means. The film develops the Ada Igwe character so well, that supporting stars are largely dimmed. Wale Ojo’s role is that of a rich philanthropist who puts his foundation’s finances in the services of refugees and internally displaced persons. His is the only fully developed character in the film, next to Ada Igwe’s. The blogosphere has focused less on the film’s core story and exaggerated the input of the so called scenes. The message is that every individual has a purpose in society; here’s a woman sexually abused as a young girl by a philandering teacher, who grows into an activist, but also exhibits nymphomaniac tendencies as a result of the damage the early experiences have wrought. The truth is that the sex scenes are tame, even mediocre. Where naked bodies move close to each other, they hardly touch and, in playing true to Nollywood’s prudish tendencies, there’s more “apply the grease on the bodies to show the aftermath of sex” than anything close to real groping. Alter Ego may not be the best arranged picture Nollywood has delivered in the last year, but its message is far more significant than every other flick and deserves a more coherent debate than these soft sell print and internet media are keen to engage in.

Calendar: King Baabu Continues; 9Nice and Sound Sultan To Perform At Freedom Park
Oxzygen Koncepts continues its month long production of Wole Soyinka’s King Baabu at the Freedom Park this weekend. The show runs from 7pm this evening as it does every day of the weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) throughout August 2017. King Baabu is “a far reaching satire on the rule of General Sanni Abacha in Nigeria”. It “chronicles the debauched rule of General Basha Bash who takes power in a coup and exchanges his general’s uniform for a robe and crown, re-christening himself King Babu”. At the same venue (Freedom Park), the Roots and Rhythm Concert is scheduled for Friday August 25, with 9Nice, Sound Sultan, Lord of Ajasa, Seriki and ID Cabasa headlining. Guest appearance is by Wale Aboderin and The Ruptures Band. The show is promoted by Kayode Samuel’s Majestic Entertainment. Monday evening open film show In London, from August 24 to 29, the Bolanle Austen Peters Productions (BAAP) presents Saro The Musical at the Shaw Theatre, in the North West of the city. Show time for the six days of performances is 7pm.

Jollof Rice Loving Möschel Takes Charge At City Hall
Goethe Institut has announced the arrival of Munich born Friederike Möschel as the new director in Nigeria. Ms. Möschel, who has declared her love for spicy Jollof Rice, one of Nigeria’s most popular cultural products, takes over from Alfons Hug, the retired curator and critic who has run the Institut on an interim basis in the last one year. Möschel is taking charge of the German cultural centre, located in the Lagos City Hall, in its 55th year of operation in Nigeria. Goethe has been a dynamic site of interaction between culture producers; visual artists, writers, filmmakers, etc, and the public since it opened here in 1962. Until around 15 years ago, it was the dominant hub of cultural and artistic activities in the city. The new director comes to Lagos after a five-year term at the Institut’s Dubai office in the UAE, which she was instrumental to founding. She’d spent an earlier two and a half years as director of the language department at the Goethe-Institut Tashkent/Uzbekistan, and a two-and-a-half year stint in Kiev/Ukraine, where she was in charge of the regional co-ordination of the Eastern Partnership fund, and the implementation of cultural projects in Ukraine. Ms. Möschel’s target on the new posting is to “tap into the confidence, determination and drive of the younger generation of Nigerian artists,” largely by working with “as many local art institutions and corporations as possible at the grassroots level.” The primary constituency she will work with is hoping she will approach the job with the effervescence of Marc-André Schmachtel, whose term spanned five years (November 2010 –June 2016), than the taciturnity for which Hug(who had actually worked twice in Nigeria) was known. Möschel grew up in Hamburg, Bonn and Munich. She completed studies in German and English Literature in Bonn, Heidelberg and Köln and taught at the German Embassy School in Beijing, China for two years. Thereafter, she worked for four years in the education sector in Hamburg before joining the Goethe-Institut.

• Compiled by staff of Festac News Press Agency

0 Comments