Recording “Behind The Scenes” At The Cinema Is Piracy – Funke Akindele

Nollywood filmmaker Funke Akindele has urged fans to stop recording and sharing scenes from her new movie, “Behind The Scenes.” She recently warned that piracy could hurt the project, and fans have been reacting.

According to her, after seeing clips from cinema screenings circulating online, particularly from the United Kingdom, she can only stress that recording or posting any part of the film amounts to piracy.

Funke added that she spent more than a billion naira on that project, and she does not want to run into debt.

Her words, “Please don’t record, we spent over a billion on that project, don’t let me run into debt, please stop posting the recordings, it is piracy.

Say no to direct & indirect piracy. Hello my beautiful fans. We’re super excited that Behind The Scenes is showing in cinemas, but please let’s say a big no to recording any scenes of #BehindTheScenes in the cinema. Recording or posting clips, even short ones is also piracy. Yes, take pictures at the roll up banners and share your reviews, but no recording inside the cinema, please. Kindly share this message with family and friends let’s support the hard work behind this masterpiece. See you at the cinemas! Thank you.”

WOW.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.