We Don't Like Ourselves - Ruth Kadiri Speaks on Problems With Nollywood

Nigerian actress Ruth Kadiri is opening up about some of the problems she sees with Nollywood, and calling out some of the things that need to change for the industry to move forward during an interview with Pulse. Here's what Ruth Kadiri had to say.

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Speaking about the problems she feels Nollywood is facing, Ruth Kadiri got honest, saying:

RUTH KADIRI: We don't have proper structure, that's why we're not getting some of the benefits that we should get as filmmakers.

But then, I'm also not going to blame anybody cuz in a structureless environment, people are still struggling to make things happen, right. I feel like we should come together more as much as we can.

We should be less judgmental because people laughed at me three years ago when I started YouTube and it's baffling me that you are now on YouTube, you see! Because you're shortsighted and whatever it was that made you laugh then, did it change? No. What you don't understand, don't criticize it. That's it.

Because we need everybody to make this whole budget encompassing. We need the cinema, we need more industry. We can't be building YouTube and next thing you hear Netflix is going, no! I don't think that it's good. If we have a Netflix, we have this, we have that, we have more options; it shows that the industry is growing.

And then these platforms are coming and it is still us that are destroying it. It is still us. Why that is, I don't know. I'll tell you something that happened to me years ago.

So I sold a film of mine to a platform for, I'm just going to use a figure of N10. So I sold my film at N10 to this platform and I wasn't the direct distributor, somebody distributed. So I didn't get to see the contract of NDA. So a colleague asked me "oh, how much did you sell?" I said I sold at N10. They were like oh, great.

One month later, I get a call "why would you discuss the fee, I mean we have an agreement." I told this person, I know who I told. Apparently, he went there to sell his film and they said they're going to buy at N4, and he then he now said why would you buy my film at N4 but buy Ruth's film at N10. Guess what? They can just decide and say you know what, this is creating you discord and stuff, maybe we should just peg the figure at N5 regardless of how good your movie is or not.

We talk too much and we destroy everything that we have. Non-disclosure doesn't mean anything to anybody. Some will even lie for clout, but at the end of the day you don't know somebody somewhere is tabling your matter.

You see, these are some of the things that affect us. And we don't like each other. Why don't you like me? No reason, you just don't like me cuz why is she the one doing it? You think I'm doing it for myself, I'm not doing it for myself.

The first person who sold his or her film to Netflix wasn't doing it for himself, he was opening a door that a lot of other persons in the industry would have access to. So until you start seeing life from that perspective, you are always going to be bitter and be jealous.

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