For Nigerian Filmmaker Niyi Akinmolayan, The Key To Navigating Nollywood Is To Keep Experimenting

Say what you will about Nigerian creatives, but one thing you cannot disparage them for is their willingness to put themselves out there, even in the face of scathing criticism, criminally unkind logistics, and huge financial risks. For an industry as multilayered as Nollywood, to be specific, filmmaking is akin to a game of Russian roulette; a lot of resources go into making a movie, and sometimes, the commercial and critical outcomes could be disappointing, almost to the point of throwing in the towel.

One man that would know about the gamble that is filmmaking in Nollywood is Niyi Akinmolayan, Nigerian movie director and founder of media production company Anthill Studios. He is the director of some of Nollywood’s more commercially successful movies in recent years, including The Wedding Party 2 (2017), The Set Up (2019) and Prophetess (2021). But he also knows a lot about critical and commercial failure: his sci-fi feature film Kajola (2010) bombed at the box office despite gulping about N130 million in production, and Chief Daddy 2: Going for Broke (2022) was critically panned to the extent that Mo Abudu, the movie’s executive producer had to issue a public apology via her Instagram account.

As Creative Director of Anthill Studios, Akinmolayan has worked on a number of Nollywood films, to varying degrees of acclaim: Uyoyou Adia’s Hey You (2022) was poorly received by critics, while Akay Mason’s Elevator Baby (2019) was praised for the performance of Timini Egbuson, who won the award for Best Actor in a Drama or TV Series at the 2020 AMVCAs.

On 3rd June, 2023, Anthill Studios released a trailer for Akinmolayan’s forthcoming film House of Secrets, a psychological thriller that stars Najite Dede, Efe Irele, Shawn Faqua, Kate Henshaw, Femi Jacobs and Funlola Aofiyebi-Raimi, among others. Touted as a feature film that dwells on memory, espionage and trauma, the 140-second clip teasing the film generated a lot of buzz in the days that followed, with many applauding the cinematography and the use of monochrome.

In the days leading up to the movie’s release, I caught up with Akinmolayan to discuss his career trajectory, creative choices, the new feature film, and perspectives on filmmaking in Nollywood. He was joined in this conversation by frequent collaborator Barnabas Emordi, who worked as Director of Photography on House of Secrets, and who had previously worked with Anthill Studios on Hey You, Prophetess and Elevator Baby.

When asked about the motivating factors behind his studio’s experimentation with different types of films, Akinmolayan explains that he is driven by the constant desire to chart new territory.

“People find it difficult to separate Anthill films from ‘films directed by me’, he says. “You tend to see the more commercial bits like The Wedding Party 2 and Chief Daddy attached to my name and catalogue. Of all the directors-for-hire, I’m the one who has taken on more high-budget films. The big question is, how do you separate yourself as someone with a unique voice from every other thing you do in the course of your career? This is why Anthill is a bit different. Anthill was built on a very simple idea, which is that we should be able to try new things with film. I started the company in 2009. We were a bunch of young guys in our late 20s who were tired of being force-fed with the same genres of film, and we wanted to try something different. I built the company based off that, even though my background was in animation; I had worked in advertising, making videos for corporate organisations. We felt that we could apply this knowledge into filmmaking and storytelling. If it’s an Anthill film, be sure that we are always going to experiment. We have a saying that ‘if it can (easily) be done, then we are not going to be doing it.’ Pushing the envelope is a major part of our ethos.

“In Elevator Baby for example, we asked ourselves if we were going to be able to hold an audience for long enough in an elevator, and we put ourselves to task. That film was the signal that we were going to be a different kind of studio; it’s one of our most successful films when you look at profit margins. In Prophetess for instance, we filled up an entire stadium using VFX. We will always do the mass market films (for Inkblot and Ebonylife), but when it comes to an Anthill film, we will always make a statement.  If you are coming to work with us as a director or writer, you had better be coming with something exciting. The reason that you are seeing projects like Mikolo and House of Secrets now is that we are now 100% a production company, this is our voice emerging, this is us opening our slate and making films fully on our own terms. When working on the script for this film (House of Secrets), one of the things that Barnabas (Emordi) and I synced on was the need to curate the memories (of the protagonists) in black and white (visuals), and stylised monochrome at that. Right now, you are experiencing Anthill in its full glory and original vision. I make bold to say that if there’s any new technique or phenomenon that Nollywood audiences are looking to see filmmakers attempt, we will probably be the first to try it,” he adds.

Per his approach to filmmaking, he also admits that he is quite particular about how his efforts appear on the eye.

“I prioritise visual filmmaking a lot at Anthill. No matter what you feel about the story, it’s impossible to see a film from our studio and think that it’s not, at the very least, aesthetically pleasing.”

As far as film promotions go, Akinmolayan has a knack for quickly moving on from one project to the next, at least if his social media interactions are anything to go by. Between King of Thieves and Man for the Job, there were only a few weeks of specific promotional content. He attributes this to Anthill’s mantra which runs along the lines of  ‘keep moving forward’, and the need to treat filmmaking with the business acumen that it deserves

“Imagine if Disney or Marvel had to listen to everyone’s opinion of a film”, he notes. “This is a business -and this is something that is hard for Nollywood audiences or even critics to understand – so for every time we make a film, between 60 to 100 people pay their utility bills, fund their medical expenses and sort out the school fees of their wards. It has to be a moving train. That’s the reason the big studios like Netflix and Amazon are here, that’s why they work with companies like ours. If filmmakers decided to only put out one film in the space of two years, there won’t be an industry. Every film we are releasing this year was written and planned last year. Right now, we’re in development for the projects we intend to release next year, and that’s how you keep the engine running. At a certain point in your career as a filmmaker, you have to come to terms with the reality that you won’t always make films that people like. The Spielbergs and Nolans of this world have made movies that audiences sneered at. It’s part of the business; you can’t afford to be ‘distracted’ (by emotions) as a filmmaker. Anthill is the studio with probably the highest number of in-house staff in Nollywood, and to stay afloat, we have to keep making films. No one is entirely indifferent about the stories they put out, but what is more import is to keep putting out movies; that’s how you build an industry. The big studios did not come because of one film that made it to an international festival, they came because a film like The Wedding Party made big bank, and the numbers drew them in to set up shop here. If we didn’t make those mass market films back then, we wouldn’t have had the openings we see around us now.”

Comments pertaining to the casting choices for House of Secrets have been of the hold-my-breath variety, with a few observers lauding the decisions to go with “character actors” rather than the more popular faces in the industry. Akinmolayan notes that in scouting actors for this film, he laid more emphasis on the (perceived) capacity to hand in convincing performances.

“As a director, when casting for film, you usually find yourself weighing your options. One question you need to ask yourself is, what is the most important thing to look out for in this kind of film? There are films where it’s important to have popular people or funny faces because they drive the film by their personality, and our audiences don’t necessarily separate the actors from their persona; if I use Broda Shaggi for example, people know what to expect, so I’d build the character around something that people are more familiar with. This film required actors that were performance-driven and understood the roles. They didn’t necessarily need to be people with a huge social media following, because we felt that the idea of the film was enough marketing. We had previously worked with Efe (Irele), and for Shawn Faqua, he had previously auditioned for us a few years ago, and even if he didn’t get picked for that role back then, his audition was memorable, and I always knew I would want to work with him. Casting Najite (Dede) was tricky because we needed her to have some similar features with Efe, who plays the younger version of her character. She was actually recommended for the role by Barny (Emordi), who had coincidentally worked with her a few months prior. We studied her facial structure, and we felt that she embodied what an ‘old’ Efe will look like. All the other casting choices were made by Victoria Akujobi (the movie’s producer).”

When asked about the length of time that went into piecing House of Secrets together, Barnabas Emordi recounts the immersive nature of the process, and lets me in on the infusion of Artificial Intelligence into his work.

“Before principal photography, we had an extensive pre-production process, and we deployed AI”, he says. “We had a vision, we knew what we wanted, and we felt that it wouldn’t hurt to get some assistance from tech. We also had to decide how we wanted to design our lighting, as well as the layout of the monochrome. Much credit should go to the production designer, because we had to build an entire set from scratch. When you have a unique vision, you want to be in charge of all the elements that may be involved in the actualisation of said vision. The pre-production probably lasted about four months, but when you factor in the ideation of the story and the other technical bits, a lot has had to be developed over a period of six months before pre-production. Nollywood is reaching that point where you need to work; the industry is growing at a terrific pace, and there are no shortcuts if you are gunning for quality.”

Emordi remembers the production process of House of Secrets with fondness, and as he reflects, he is not bashful about how he feels about watching the story translate from script to frame.

“You have an idea, you have a script, but at the end of the day, you have no idea how things will unfold until you get on set. For me, the first day on set was one of my best days: we had built two frames that we would use as a reference, we positioned our camera, we did our lighting, and when we saw the actors in the frame, it matched with what we had in our reference, and it was at that point that I knew the film would be magical. I also look back in gratitude for the opportunity to work with a dedicated cast and crew. It was a surreal experience for me.”

Akinmolayan, on his part, revels in the production design, and reveals that a lot of inventiveness came into play.

“We are doing something revolutionary at Anthill”, he says. “People are not paying attention yet, but they surely will. Most people don’t know this, but the set for Hey You was built in the same place and with the same wood as Progressive Tailors Club, and the same furniture as was used in The Man for the Job. The mere fact that we can reuse structures points to how we are redefining the way we make films in Nollywood. Making this film (House of Secrets) was special because everything we used was stuff that was impossible to rent outside; the film is about a house that was constructed to help a woman jog her memory, outside her window she has to see a house and a balcony, and there is no way you can rent those. So we had to build a 1990s post office; it was difficult to get photos for reference, even on Google, so I had to use a lot of methods including generative AI, to figure out what it would have looked like. The movie features a train scene, and what if I told you that we constructed that train with plywood?”

The success of a few Nigerian arthouse films on the international festival circuit in recent months, including CJ Obasi’s Mami Water and Babatunde Apalowo’s All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White, have sparked conversations on the future direction of filmmaking in Nollywood. For Mami Wata in particular, notably filmed in monochrome, there has been light speculation of a looming bandwagon effect, and with the release of House of Secrets, there’s a chance that those whispers will be louder. But Akinmolayan believes that the sky is large enough.

“I’ll be glad if it (more filmmakers shooting in black and white) happens, but it also has to happen for the right reasons. We didn’t just wake up and decide to use monochrome for those films; it’s a deliberate use of technique. With my film in particular, there is a meaning behind the deployment of monochrome; when a baby is born, they do not see in colour for the first few months, they see in black and white. So when I started thinking of memories and the process involved in helping people remember past events, I figured that the most basic form in which the brain stores images is in black and white, hence that choice of colour. Also, when people forget things, it’s not always because they’ve experienced something that will make them forget, but sometimes the brain blocks your memory just to protect you from harm. There are hidden gems where we use light and shadow to hide certain bits of information. It wasn’t a film just shot with regular camera and then simply converted to black and white, it was a thematic decision. I’ve always been an advocate for using colour as an element of storytelling, so I’d love to see filmmakers try to use colour to drive emotions.”

House of Secrets premiers today Friday 30th June, 2023 on Amazon Prime, and it’s currently streaming on the platform.

Jerry Chiemeke is a communications executive, film critic, journalist, and lawyer. His works have appeared in Berlinale Press, Die Welt, and The Africa Report, among others. Jerry lives in London, where he writes on Nollywood, African literature, and Nigerian music. He is the author of “Dreaming of Ways to Understand You” a collection of short stories.