By way of Bennett Oghifo
“Come On Naija,” a media manufacturing corporate, famend for its creativity and culturally wealthy tasks, has opened its doorways to partnership with manufacturers, establishments, and filmmakers to create bespoke content material and leisure houses that allow them to authentically connect to audiences.
The corporate which has produced prime quality movies, options, has restated its willpower to show off the intensity of Nigerian narratives, cultural values and creative excellence whilst additionally contributing to the enrichment of the worldwide leisure trade.
The Leader Government Officer of the corporate, Mrs. Olawumi Fajemirokun, mentioned “Come on Naija” operates on the intersection of leisure, tradition, media and the inventive economic system, reworking compelling Nigerian tales and cultural stories into professionally evolved highbrow assets with the prospective to succeed in audiences in Nigeria, throughout Africa and across the world.
In line with Mrs. Fajemirokun, “Come On Naija” has a diverse industry portfolio as a multimedia manufacturing corporate overlaying filmmaking, figuring out tales, growing highbrow assets, assembling inventive and business partnerships, generating fine quality content material, in addition to developing a couple of alternatives for audiences, manufacturers, buyers, vendors and cultural establishments to take part within the price chain.
The “Come on Naija” boss says the corporate is out to fill a void within the leisure trade, including, “Nigeria possesses one of the crucial global’s richest reservoirs of human tales, traditions, entrepreneurial stories, historic occasions, personalities, communities and cultural expressions. But many of those tales stay undocumented, underdeveloped or offered to audiences with out the dimensions and manufacturing high quality they deserve. Come On Naija exists to near that hole.”
The corporate’s craft and storytelling excellence has already gained world validation. “Come on Naija” received 3 awards on the prestigious Toronto World Nollywood Movie Pageant (TINFF) in Canada, a reputation that additional affirms its dedication to authenticity, excessive manufacturing requirements and international relevance.
The corporate has recorded hit productions together with “Afamefuna: An Nwa Boi Tale” – the first-ever function movie at the Igbo Apprenticeship Machine – and “Iwe Ala: An Ojude Oba Tale”, either one of which drew robust opinions and applause from artwork enthusiasts for his or her creativity and authenticity.
“Come on Naija” builds its storytelling philosophy on 5 core rules: authenticity, excellence, leisure, cultural preservation, and international relevance. This philosophy is according to the basis that content material must be concurrently native in its id and common in its emotional enchantment.
Past filmmaking, “Come on Naija” could also be a cultural preservation agent thru cultural analysis, culture-based movies and documentation.
Talking not too long ago on her film adventure, Mrs. Fajemirokun mentioned: “My adventure into storytelling started at an overly younger age, rooted within the shared cultural stories of my formative years. I fondly have in mind accumulating across the tv with my siblings to look at Stories via Moonlight on NTA. Rising up in a family of six kids, tv viewership was once a collective, intentional enjoy reasonably than a person luxurious. We needed to align on what we watched, which fostered a deep, shared appreciation for narrative construction and neighborhood engagement from early on.
“This early fascination with narrative was once additional nurtured thru literature. Whilst my friends have been immersed in overseas classics like Enid Blyton’s Well-known 5, I discovered myself profoundly attracted to indigenous authors, specifically the kids’s books written via Mamman Jiya Vatsa. His paintings deeply resonated with me as it mirrored our instant truth. Finding at an early age that our personal tales may well be fantastically documented and celebrated left an indelible mark on me. It formed my inventive imaginative and prescient as an Government Manufacturer, instilling a lifelong dedication to championing original Nigerian and African narratives at the international degree.”
On her defining second within the trade, she mentioned: “The defining second was once in reality born out of a profound unhappiness and a definite loss of make stronger from one among my current industry traces. It compelled a pointy pivot, making me understand I had to glance towards an artistic house I had quietly thought of since my early 20s. That duration taught me the worthwhile lesson of accepting failure and refusing to let it change into an everlasting setback.
“While you glance initially of the entirety, the first thing God did was once advent, and that divine act is intrinsically connected to us as people. We’re constructed to create. As a result of this, I’ve come to firmly imagine that attractive in creativity is likely one of the largest works an individual can do; totally believing to your inventive instincts in the end results in the actual trail of achievement.
“This deeply private realization completely aligned with a strategic have a look at Nigeria’s financial and demographic panorama. Nollywood is a dynamic, extremely influential, and swiftly rising sector. While you couple that with the truth that Nigeria has a remarkably younger demographic, with a median age of 18, it turns into transparent that our early life are actively on the lookout for positive, inventive avenues to specific themselves. The movie trade is uniquely located to take in and empower this unbelievable ability. Understanding this, I noticed a possibility to means storytelling from a recent, impactful perspective. I sought after to create movies that bridge the distance between custom and modernity. Moderately than focusing only on historic epics, my imaginative and prescient is to supply recent tales that stay deeply rooted in our shared cultural id. By way of bringing those related, original narratives to international displays, we offer a platform that permits us all to really feel immensely happy with our heritage, turning cultural preservation right into a viable medium for financial and social have an effect on.”
On her Netflix hit, “Afamefuna: An Nwa Boi Tale,” Mrs. Fajemirokun remarked: “Afamefuna is a venture that continues to be extremely just about my center. After I mirror on why international and native audiences hooked up so deeply with it, the solution lies in the way in which the movie mirrors the resilient entrepreneurial spirit inherent in Nigerians.
“From an overly younger age, maximum Nigerians are uncovered to the mechanics of industrial. If it is a casual micro-enterprise or a big brick-and-mortar operation, business ingenuity is embedded in our DNA. We aren’t a tradition that waits for handouts; we don’t imagine in passivity, and not anything is just given to us without spending a dime. Irrespective of gender or background, there’s an understood necessity to paintings laborious to your good fortune. Even kids as younger as ten or twelve are incessantly already brainstorming the best way to promote books or interact in small trades to give a contribution and develop.
“Afamefuna speaks without delay to this resilience and our capability for endurance whilst development from the bottom up. Audiences resonated with the original depiction of our paintings ethic, our pressure to determine enterprises from a tender age with out requiring huge capital, and without equal triumph of establishing one thing out of not anything. The movie showcased the type of grassroots good fortune tales that we see throughout us each day, and that common pressure for self-determination is what made it so tough.”
A ordinary theme in Mrs. Fajemirokun’s tasks is the party of tradition, id, and original African stories. For her, it vital that Nigerian tales are instructed from an original standpoint reasonably than thru borrowed narratives? Mrs. Fajemirokun expatiates: “I firmly imagine that our distinctive tradition is precisely what makes us stand out at the international degree. Sadly, as a result of our colonial historical past, there was a lingering tendency to borrow overseas narratives and dilute our personal tales. This was once incessantly executed merely to realize acceptance or to satisfy a perceived bar of globalization, closely influenced via what’s Westernized or historically authorized via the West as ‘civil’ and ‘fashionable.’
“For a very long time, there was once a false impression that cultural authenticity and international relevance have been mutually unique— as though leaning into your traditions supposed you’ll want to no longer really be a world citizen until you conformed to these borrowed requirements.
“This can be a narrative that has been handed down thru generations, and it’s a space I’m deeply correcting. By way of bringing those original scripts to existence, my objective is to encourage other folks to really feel immense delight in what our tradition and traditions constitute. After we totally embody who we’re, we naturally command consideration.
“Nigerians don’t want to mix in or rewrite their identities to suit a overseas definition of modernity; our heritage is our aggressive benefit. Whilst some might find it irresistible and others would possibly not, in fact that the worldwide target market will all the time appreciate whilst you stand firmly to your personal id. If you don’t stand for one thing, you are going to fall for anything else, and I make a choice to face for the brilliance of our original African tales.”
On her greatest courses in movie industry, Fajemorokun mentioned: “From an target market standpoint, one of the crucial clearest courses is that audience naturally crave high-stakes narrative momentum. Audiences recognize an exhilarating trajectory, they wish to be captivated, and so they love a well-crafted cliffhanger. Even inside of a deeply dramatic function, weaving in parts of anxiety and strategic pacing is very important to stay audience completely invested.
“At the economics aspect, filmmaking is inherently a high-risk mission. Since the monetary stakes are so increased, essentially the most crucial foreign money within the fashionable marketplace is visibility. Good fortune is dependent upon maximizing visibility, advertising, and marketplace penetration at each and every degree of the venture. As a result of this high-risk framework, long-term business sustainability is predicated closely on strategic partnerships.
“We’re continuously figuring out and aligning with firms, manufacturers, and institutional organizations that may make stronger our monetary constructions. Cultivating those strategic alignments is what mitigates threat and guarantees that fine quality African cinema stays each culturally impactful and commercially viable.”