By Oluwafemi Dosu
The writer of the award winning movie, Neema, Evang. Tola Bolaji has cried out to Christians to support Christian filmmakers by buying Christian movies instead of waiting for it’s free show in churches.
Bolaji made this known yesterday in a Facebook post he titled ‘We have spoilt them.’
In a report by Gospel Film News, the screenwriter noted that Christians no longer want to buy gospel movies because movie makers show it to them for free in their churches and give them sometimes free CDs, saying he’s are talking about a church that can’t raise money to sponsor gospel movie.
“Christians pay for Christian books, they pay for Dvd messages, they buy musical CDs, they pay in church supermarkets… Why shouldn’t they pay a token to watch our movie? How will we upgrade our movie when we are not sure if we will see the capital back? When Passion of the Christ was to be premiered it was not free, a rich man as a seed of faith bought hundreds of ticket to give free to unbelievers,” he said.
The grieved screenwriter added that: “We can stage for free, but latest movies should receive seed of investment. Then after watching the movie, let’s discuss it and ask for feedbacks no matter how critical to enhance our job.
“For Village evangelism, there are many movies we can take along and not recent, that are classics with the permission of the producers and even at that certain token should be paid the producer. Just imagine that every Christian in redemption camp pick a subsided Dvd for a paltry N300. Imagine same thing at Deeper Life Camp. Same at Mountain of Fire. Do you know how many millions of CD that will be sold?”
According to him, if every Christian that loves God, watch Ogongo TV, and many online Christian Movie channels on daily basis, do you know how many views it will have, or those secular TVs with monstrous views only have unbelievers as the viewing numbers, adding that Christians patronise them more but since they can get Christian movies for almost free, quantity killing quality.
“Our people cannot feed their family especially as a film writer, actor or director… They need other jobs in the day to make ends meet. So, we cannot have full professionals with updating knowledge able to compete with Nollywood and Hollywood because they can’t fully focus on the art of film making….it’s like a signage to perpetual poverty and eventual death.
“NB
Sometimes too, it breaks my heart to ask a faith based producer to pay for writing an amount he’s not even sure of making back in distribution. But then we got to eat.
Also, we need to work on our distribution, I met someone sometimes ago that says they needed a movie in its thousands but the producer is done producing it or not aware.
It’s also sad that mega ministries with capacity to pay up the bill of the health of our ailing brother who needed to do surgery have not shown up. This same churches we’ve shown movie to for free, who have used our movies for film shows and outreaches…. Cannot come together under whatever umbrella to bless our ailing soldier who as used his talent to populate their meetings…when we all know what is raised at conventions…
It’s just my opinion. If you shot your movie with money and you wish to shoot another, monetize,” he concluded.