My Life In Nollywood: Mautin Tairu

Every week, The Culture Custodian grants you an all-access backstage pass into the lives of Nollywood rock stars. You get to learn about their fascinating backgrounds, the behind-the-scenes stories, and more. This episode features media executive, talent manager, film marketing strategist and executive producer, Mautin Olorunleke Tairu.

For over a decade, Mautin Tairu has been contributing to developments within Nigeria’s creative industry. Despite his background in the sciences, Tairu was drawn towards the arts where he sought creative and marketing opportunities. Shelving university education, he groomed himself through several trainings in desktop publishing, graphics design, digital marketing, film and media-related studies across institutes in countries like Nigeria, Kenya and the UK where he acquired the hands-on experience and expertise to function as a media and marketing executive, helping media outfits and indie filmmakers communicate their brand ideas effectively.

Tairu founded Guguru Media in 2020, a Lagos-based multimedia production company with a specialization in film and content production, brand and marketing strategies, and talent management. The company manages Nollywood talents such as Uzor Arukwe, Kelechi Udegbe, Najite Dede, Adunni Ade, Iremide Adeoye, Sharon Rotimi, Kanyin Eros, Jude Chukwuka and Obi Maduegbuna. He served as an executive producer for Tanwa Savage, the second-highest-grossing Nigerian film in its first week of release in January 2021 and was subsequently acquired by Netflix. He is also an executive producer of Mami Wata, a multi-award-winning, black-and-white-shot West African folktale film written and directed by C. J. Obasi. Mami Wata is the first Nigerian film to screen at the exclusive Sundance Film Festival where it received the Grand Jury Prize in Cinematography in 2023. The film is also a recipient of three awards at the biannual Fespaco Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

This conversation with Mautin Tairu has been condensed for clarity.

How would you describe your responsibilities in Nollywood as a talent manager, executive producer, media executive, and film marketing strategist?

My job as a talent manager is to help actors build a profitable ground to make a business out of their talent and position them for international recognition. As an executive producer, I am involved in making creative decisions as a key player in financing and overseeing the execution of film projects. Being a media executive is more encompassing. In this regard, I oversee media-related content that has to do with the talents that we manage and media that has to do with other brands to help them meet their marketing and advertising goals. A media executive has extensive knowledge of marketing, publicity, promotions, and creative assets management.

What do you think is your greatest strength as a film and media executive?

Strategy and intentionality are my greatest strengths. I pay great attention to detail, and I am strong when it comes to putting together tested and trusted strategies that help to meet needs tailored toward media production.

I would like you to take me on a trip down memory lane and recall how you got into the film and media space in Nigeria.

In secondary school, I was a science student but was always in the art class doing one creative thing or the other. My journey into the creative space began about fifteen years ago after studying desktop publishing, graphics design, and Microsoft Word. I enrolled at the Red Media School of Digital Marketing at that time. In 2017, I did a course on multimedia content production at Africa Digital Media Institute and had another program at the East African Film Academy, both in Kenya. At the end of the program, I got to write and direct a film project. From one course to another I found myself doing more media-related stuff. I did a lot of freelancing in digital marketing, and ghostwriting, worked with an advertising company, and even owned a clothing line at some point. I had a partner with whom I had taken a foundation course at a film school here in Nigeria. It was important to put into practice what we had learned. We began experimenting, which gave birth to our first project titled Lagos Vibes.

At what point did you establish your film production company?

We had our first production company established in 2017. In 2020, we rebranded because I wanted something that has some originality that relates to African culture. That’s how we came about Guguru Media.

What is your vision for Guguru Media?

When we started Guguru Media, the vision was to amplify African voices and stories to a global audience. It was born out of having so much to offer in terms of creative ideas, storytelling, and history that a lot of people do not know about. We wanted to tell stories connecting Africans in the continent and diaspora.

You already mentioned some training you undertook in film and media. What about higher education?

It’s funny that I didn’t have a university education. The four years I would have given to the university were spread across different courses in film production, multimedia content production, and digital marketing. I often take diploma courses because doing so helps me to stay grounded and informed about trends in a fast-paced space like the creative industry. In 2022, I did a 3-day extensive course on film production in the UK. Earlier this year, I did a course in digital analytics.

What was growing up like? Are there other memories from your formative years that serve as an indicator of your current creative pursuits?

Growing up, I got into trouble a few times for always sitting in front of the TV and forgetting to do things my parents asked me to do. I found myself watching movies and listening to music. We used to have a radio recorder, and I would pick my mom’s cassette, insert it in the radio, and record directly from the radio station into the cassette. So, when my mom wanted to listen to Ebenezer Obey, she would instead hear E don hit my car, Oyinbo repete playing. I also remember how, during Ileya, the big Sallah festival, we would gather together as children to watch TV and listen to music. Experiences like this contributed to my creative journey.

Let’s talk about getting involved in Mami Wata as an executive producer. I’m interested in knowing what motivated you to be a part of that production.

Being the odd one informed my decision to be a part of the production. The beauty of Mami Wata shone brightly from the pitch deck where I saw a film that was going to be shot in black and white, a West African folklore, and that meant so much to me. I enjoyed listening to folklore while I was growing up. I remember Tales by Moonlight by Jimi Solanke and Baba Suwe’s Erin Keeke. So, it was interesting to have a film shot in black and white, transporting me back into my formative years, and yet, this time around, with more standard quality and all of the technicalities of the present world. There was nowhere else for me to be than being a part of the project because I knew the execution would be brilliant from the team that was put together. For me, it comes from knowing the media world and having the ability to recognize gems out of stones.

Considering Guguru Media, how do you manage a team of creative individuals with different personalities and work styles to ensure a collaborative and harmonious working environment?

I get everybody to understand that as much as there’s a hierarchy in the company, the shared interest is growth. For me, the growth of the company is the growth of every individual. My team works with me, not for me, and the goal is to create excellence. So, everybody has the right motivation to work.

Tell me about the challenges you have encountered as a film and media executive in Nigeria and how you managed them.

I’m not the kind of person who dwells on the past. I’m forward-thinking, and that’s why it’s even harder for me to remember some of my achievements because once I’m done with it, I celebrate and move on. One of the major challenges, which also applies to every industry, is funding and distribution. Other challenges are getting people to believe in your vision, to deliver within the promised time frame, and dealing with up-and-coming actors who have anxiety so they can deliver on projects. These challenges, I believe, are always there for one to identify and solve. In this digital era, where we have a lot of freelancers, it’s hard to get someone dedicated to a 9-5 in the creative industry. A professional challenge is that I don’t live for myself anymore, I live for the people I represent—one that I enjoy anyway.

Let’s take talent management as a specific sector. From your experience, I would like you to relate a few challenges that are unique here and how you deal with them.

Challenges can come from a lack of cooperation from the producers who feel up-and-coming actors don’t need a manager. These producers believe talent managers inflate the actors’ prices. What I do to solve this problem is constantly communicate, making the producers feel welcome, so they realize that having an actor of ours on their project means working with us as well. As a talent management firm with marketing strategies, we are also bringing on board the resources to help them market their films. As long as we constantly collaborate, with our talent on the project, the success of the project becomes a collective responsibility. Another challenge is managing expectations, which comes with constantly communicating with our talents about the realities of the industry and helping them to see ways in which they can add more value to their brands.

The importance of communication and collaboration cannot be overemphasized. Speaking of collaboration, at the recent edition of AFRIFF, there was a fireside chat with British-Nigerian actor John Boyega, one which gave rise to conversations around impediments to possible collaborations between Nollywood and Hollywood. If you followed the conversations, I would like to know your thoughts on them as an industry stakeholder.

First of all, we have a fundamental problem in Nollywood. Lagos State is the biggest creative hub in the industry, yet the film sector doesn’t have a standard institution that caters to the education of creatives. What that means is that people learn through people, which implies that the knowledge passed may be limited. For us to collaborate on an international level, it means that our film industry itself has to aspire to global excellence. And we need proper education to be able to make films for global excellence and attract international collaborations. There’s also the problem of pride from people in our industry who think they have arrived.

In your capacity, as a stakeholder, what do you think you can do to change the status quo in Nollywood?

What I can do is amplify the voices of those who are very intentional and passionate about their craft. I’m very collaborative in that sense because I keep an eye for talent. When we look at the likes of C. J. Obasi, Tolu Ajayi, Babatunde Apalowo, and Ifeoma Nkiruka Chukwuogo who directed Phoenix Fury, we realize that they either attended proper film schools where they studied film as a course or tried to gain extensive knowledge in the process of filmmaking. In my capacity, I will collaborate with them. If we have more of them with their voices celebrated here at home, instead of being derogatorily called “festival filmmakers”, it will be to our benefit.

What are your hobbies and other creative endeavors aside from film and media?

My life revolves around the creative space. I used to sing and play games like PS5 while growing up but I rather listen to music now. I do spend time with my family when I’m not working. I am a single man and I travel most of the time to reconcile with my siblings abroad and also play uncle duties. Outside of film, I enjoy adrenaline-driven adventures like skydiving and paragliding. But I would like to write again, just as I did when in Kenya and while I was a songwriter.

Are you currently working on any film or television project? What more creative pursuits should we expect from Guguru Media?

I am currently working on a personal project, a short film titled The Autograph of Nothingness, and I’m convinced that it’s one of those projects where we’ll be telling an important story. It touches on love, self-doubt, rejection, and the japa wave. It is currently in the pre-production stage. We are hoping to wrap up post-production by January so we can meet up with the festivals we are targeting. That would be my debut as a creative producer. We have many projects in development from Guguru Media. It was in the news earlier this year that we won a grant for a cross-country production between Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo, so there is that in development. Besides that, we have projects that involve our talents for their executive producing debut, which is currently in development—but I cannot give much information on that until there’s a press release.