By Boluwatife Kehinde-Idowu Popular Nigerian filmmaker and movie producer, Kunle Afolayan, has revealed that the financial burden of running his film village made him to consider shutting down the facility. Afolayan made this known during an appearance on the latest edition of The Builders Podcast hosted by former Minister of……
By Boluwatife Kehinde-Idowu
Popular Nigerian filmmaker and movie producer, Kunle Afolayan, has revealed that the financial burden of running his film village made him to consider shutting down the facility.
Afolayan made this known during an appearance on the latest edition of The Builders Podcast hosted by former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, where he spoke about the challenges of financing film production and maintaining infrastructure for filmmakers.
He recalled that during the production of his movie Anikulapo, his crew struggled with accommodation and had to stay in people’s homes because the set was in a village. Afolayan revealed that the experience prompted him to build the infrastructure that can support the filmmaking industry.
“When we shot the Anikulapo movie, we didn’t have accommodation. We were squatting in people’s houses,” Afolayan said.
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He also highlighted the cost of providing electricity at the facility, saying millions of naira had been spent on diesel, while about ₦200 million was invested in solar power. According to him, the solar installation, which was carried out last year, is still not sufficient to power the entire film village.
“I’ve spent over N8 billion of my own money building a film village, yet I get no government support. We don’t even have electricity. Never had electricity from the inception of the village. I’ve spent millions on diesel and had to spend N200 million on green energy last year, but even that isn’t enough to power the entire village,” he said.
He also appealed to relevant government agencies to support the facility, arguing that some projects he considers less extensive than his film village have received government grants while his facility has not benefited from similar assistance.
He said the financial pressure has made the continued operation of the film village increasingly difficult despite the investment already made into the project.
