U.S envoy hails NFC on Nigeria’s film industry development

 Julie McKay, the Cultural Affairs Officer of the United State Embassy, has commended the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) on its commitment towards the growth and development of Nigeria’s film industry.

This was disclosed in a statement issued to the newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja by Mr Brian Etuk, the Director, Public Affairs to the Managing Director of NFC, Dr Chidia Maduekwe.

McKay said such growth and development has continued to attract the attention and admiration of the global cultural community.

According to her, the Cultural Office of the Embassy has noted with much enthusiasm, the numerous domestic and foreign partnership windows auspicated in the past few years by the NFC.

She said the cultural office would escalate its support mechanisms for NFC to achieve more in the delivery of its mandate.

She praised the ingenuity of Nigerian filmmakers on the achievement of the successes recorded so far.

“I promise to support stakeholder’s quest in changing the narratives of Nigeria from being just the second largest producer of films, to also catch up with quality content production for the continent and global audience.

“Nigeria’s films should be able to compete at fora such as the Oscars, she said.

McKay further said that effort would be made to ensure that the Cultural Affairs Officer, facilitate more U.S film production companies, producers and directors, as well as training institutions into the Nigerian film industry.

“The NFC will be assisted to deliver on its film training and capacity building programmes with the National Film Institute (NFC) by focusing on programmes and projects being undertaken in its service delivery.

“A comprehensive collaborative support for the NFC will be revealed after a visit to its headquarters and tour of its facilities in Jos.

“Jos is where the National Film Institute (NFI), the National Film Video & Sound Archives (NFVSA) are located by the US Cultural Affairs Officer,” she added

Earlier, Maduekwe congratulated Mckay on her appointment as the new US Cultural Affairs Officer in Nigeria.

According to him, NFC is determined to sustain initiatives that will drive the optimal performance and contributions of the sector to national development.

“NFC, as a lead agency in the sector will continually position itself to lead the pack in policy issues and partnerships that will help develop the sector.

“In the past five years, we have focused on building healthy partnerships across board with countries, institutions and like-minded agencies, organisations, companies and film commissions that will help us actualise our goals.

“The goals are on the areas of human capital enhancement, film training capabilities, innovative capacity building and film production infrastructure development in Nigeria,” he said.

Maduekwe said the trajectory of NFC’s partnerships was focused on domestic, which includes inter-country film collaboration and production; capacity building; film student’s professional exchanges and technology transfer opportunities.

Others are film co-production, partnerships and collaboration; expertise in film festival development and sustainability; inter-country content distribution and sales.

The rest are access to project funding opportunities; co-operation in film festivals and film week’s organisation in partner countries and many more.

Maduekwe reiterated NFC’s commitment in utilising any given opportunities that would be provided by the US – Embassy, through the Cultural Office for the holistic and sustainable development of Nigeria’s film industry.