The official Convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), CinemaCon recognized the Nigerian movie industry with the Emerging Market Award at Ceasar’s Palace, Las Vegas, U.S.A on April 1st 2019.
The award was presented to CEO of The Filmhouse Group, Kene Okwuosa and MD, FilmOne Production and Distribution, Moses Babatope.This award comes as no surprise as there has been a major growth in the cinema culture with various cinema brands popping up to create competition in the space for already established players.
Thanks to globalization, the concept of cinema viewing had become popular, and it was ripe for a company serious about bringing the movie-going experience to the masses.
At this point, record-breaking revenues in the amount of N1.72trillion (2013) were being reported with the industry valued at N853.9billion (third in the world after the United States and India).
In 2013, FilmHouse decided to take on the challenge of entering the market to expand the cinema industry to a wider population. Today, far from the middle and upper class activity cinema-going used to be, with 44 cinemas across the country (up 29% increase from 2017), serving an estimated population of 190 million Nigerians – though not yet saturated, the growth of this culture and incidentally the industry connected to it is undeniable.
These positive strides of the FilmHouse have obviously not gone without international recognition.
From the willingness of Netflix to pour in billions of dollars into the industry over the next five years, to CinemaCon, the largest and most important gathering of movie theater owners from around the world, recognizing the Nigerian cinema market on April 1st 2019 with the ‘Emerging Market Award’, an honor not even the Bollywood rival is yet to enjoy, the tide is still very much on the rise.
This is what you would expect when in 2018 alone West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia) recorded the highest Gross Box Office earning and more titles than ever earned over N300, N200, and N100million respectively.
Babatope and Okwusa both expressed their gratitude for being selected as industry leaders to receive the CinemaCon award on behalf of the Nigerian film industry.
They have expressed optimism for growth as well as appreciation for stakeholders that have made the journey so far possible. The world continues to look to Africa and by extension, the industry leader, Nigeria, for fresh content; and the Nigerian market remains open for investment – foreign and domestic, to build in capacity.
Posted by Yetunde Adegoke
