The third edition of Ife International Film Festival themed Celebrating the Ife Film School was held on November 29 to December 2, 2012. It highlighted the great impact Dramatic Arts Department of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) has made on the film industry in Africa. But the four-day outing also scored a major point in advancing the realization of Ife Film School dream which the festival Director, Prof. Foluke Ogunleye envisioned, “new comers would aspire to be a part of, and the old-timers would be proud to be associated with.” Indeed, the rich intellectual content of the festival is domiciled in the keynote speech delivered by Prof. Ahmed Yerima (a product of the department) as he chronicled the journey of the dream school through the ages.
“DRAMA students at Ife University, including myself, identified with this postcolonial impulse whenever we encountered it in the texts we studied and sought to live it through the practical world of our community theatre projects. We saw scholarship as political activism deliberately disrupting European epistemologies whose unquestioned authority colonial and neo-colonial modernity had sought to perpetuate. The theatre we studied and practiced ritualize subjectivity as a simultaneous act of denunciating domination and enunciating ideas of effective citizenship.” (Ampka 2004: 11).
As I read Awam Ampka’s comment above, I remember with nostalgia the process of developing our cognitive and scholarly thought and reaction to the immediate intellectual consciousness of the environment at the Department of Dramatic Arts of the University of Ife in the mid seventies to the early eighties. I want to believe that what has sustained the School of Drama in its greatness has been the continuum of this process of student mental development for generations of students who have followed after. In 1977, when the Department of Dramatic Arts was set up, the students were also very privileged, like now, because they had experienced teachers like Wole Soyinka, Peggy Harper, Segun Akinbola,Yemi Ogunbiyi, Femi Euba, Folabo Ajayi, Bankole Bello and Chuck Mike, to teach them. They had the spiritual and creative reputation of Ola Rotimi at Ori Olokun, who had just left at the time, for the University of Port Harcourt, to be inspired by, learn from or compete against, and most of all, they had the genius of the talents at the UnIfe Theatre company such as Laide Adewale, Kola Oyewo, Peter Fatomilola, Peace Wakama, Gboyega Ajayi, Tunji Ojeyemi and Florence Oni, to mention but a few, as professional actors, and practical/demonstrator teachers to pick their brains, act against or act for. It was a marvelous time to go to school.
The University of Ife itself had the ambience of a cinematographic excellence. From the main gate to the bushes that hid the Palm Wine Drinkard Society den, the natural habitat of the Iyan Egin seller, where flies mingled with palmwine, and the leaves in which the pounded yam was served made it all the more delicious. The other undeveloped bushes served and preserved the mystery of the African jungle. Our immediate neigbours, the monkeys, the snakes, the red necked lizards, the monitors, the wild hogs, to name but a few, served as meals to the experts who could hunt, trap and kill them. The many Fezzan birds also became hunting spots for Wole Soyinka’s hunting skills with his group of friends who formed the Aparo Mafia. Indeed, with the well-manicured flower beds, the University Dam, the well tarred cut-out roads, and the beautiful university buildings which were then architectural wonders, the whole of the university campus at the time was like a holiday resort or a Film Village.
We must note, however, that in the beginnings, filmmaking at Ife started with individuals long before formal teaching of the programme of Film and Television was introduced into the academic syllabus. By the early seventies, Ola Rotimi with the financial help and assistance of the-then Bendel State Government had produced a film of his play, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi. Most of the actors in the film including the actor who played the title role, Jimi Solanke, were working for or under contract to Ori Olokun Theatre Company of the university or staff of the university proper. Also, by the time Wole Soyinka arrived Ile Ife in 1977 to set up the Department of Dramatic Arts, he had made two films. First, The Strong Breed ,with a grant from an international oil company, with great actors like Segun Olusola leading the cast as Jaguna, and Kongi’s Harvest, which he made with the African American filmmaker and actor, Ossie Davis, with Wole Soyinka, Dapo Adelugba, Rasheed Onikoyi, Joel Adedeji and Femi Johnson leading the cast. Yemi Ogunbiyi, Kole Omotoso, and Femi Osofisan the young actors who took part in the film were later to teach at the Department of Dramatic Arts.
Two other places can be held responsible for cinematic activities at the University of Ife before the late seventies. And they both complement each other. First, was Ile Ife as an ancient town and ancestral home of the Yoruba race. It is a beehive of both cultural and religious activities, and a magnet to the scholars and casual filmmakers interested in documentation of the rich cultural heritage which the ancient city housed, celebrated and performed to the world. Ile Ife attracted the world to it for its historical, visual, artistic, oral literature and the very symbols and essence of Yoruba existence. Second was the university itself. With Nigerian scholars, and visual artists, like Michael Crowder, Lamidi Fakeye, Agbo Folarin, Wande Abimbola, E.A. Akinjogbin, Fatinilehim, Oyin Ogunba, Roland Abiodun, Lawal, Biodun Jeyifo, G.G. Darah, Funso Aiyejina, Victor Olaniyan, Moyo Okedeji, the university became an attraction for international scholars to visit, film the works of the resident scholars, and document them for prosperity.
In the beginning
Film and Television did not come into the Department of Dramatic Arts curriculum until 1978, when the degree programme was started. In 1977, what the Department started was the Certificate in Drama (CDA). This was done because Soyinka who had been made Head of Department was in Germany writing his play, Opera Wonyosi, and did not report for work as head of department until admissions had closed for degree programmes. So he opted to start the CDA programme with one student, Ahmed Yerima, and some professionals like Laide Adewale, Kola Oyewo, Peace Wakama, Yomi Fawole, Segun Bankole, Andrew Akenzua, Tunji Ojeyemi, Peter Fatomiloa and Muraina Oyelami, who were established professional actors and artists in their own right, and who had worked with Ola Rotimi at the Ori Olokun Theatre company. With this move, the University of Ife, then under Professor Ojetunji Aboyade as Vice-Chancellor, disbanded the Ori Olokun Theatre Company which was based in town, sent some of its old artists home, moved the company into the campus, renamed it The UNIFE Theatre Company, and brought it directly under the Head of Department of Dramatic Arts as Artistic Director.
The Ife curriculum was greatly inspired by Yemi Ogunbiyi who had attended the University of Ibadan and New York University. His doctoral thesis which was supervised by the great American scholar, Richard Schechecner had been on film criticism. He was seconded from the Department of Literature to assist Soyinka in setting up the Department of Dramatic Arts. To work with him was a Television veteran whose influence on the curriculum was to also become profound, Segun Akinbola. He had a background in Television working on the set of some of our most memorable productions like Village Headmaster as, actor, scriptwriter and technical staff. Even though a specialist of Technical Theatre, Akinbola’s passion for television studies and Ogunbiyi’s background in film gave birth to the course which was titled Film and Television. What they needed at the time was a teacher who could not only articulate the content of the programme but one who could hold the interest of the students through the practical aspects of the programme.
They found the person in Bankole Bello. He graduated in 1969 from the University of Ife with a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English, and then went on to New York University to read first Library studies and then Film. He returned to Nigeria in the early seventies and took up a job with the Film Unit of the University of Ife, at the Institute of African Studies under Professor Akintoye who was then Director. At the Institute, he met a great documentary filmmaker, Frank Speed, and also was overwhelmed with the equipment he met at Ife. “Upon my arrival, I was surprised to find that the University of Ife had more film equipment than New York University. I was greatly encouraged.” (Interview with Bello)
By 1975, Bankole Bello started working with Nigerian filmmakers such as Ola Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Ishola Ogunsola, and Femi Aloba. He also did some professional work with still photography and television. It is of little wonder, therefore, that Bankole Bello became the ideal candidate for the position of anchorman and teacher for the film and television course in the Department of Dramatic Arts.
The curriculum aimed at exposing the students of both the certificate and degree programmes to the basic techniques of still, television, and film (8mm, 16mm and 32mm) camera handling. By the time students got to the final year (400 level), they made short silent movies which were part of their practical projects for the credits in the course. The course received a great boost from three angles of the university’s activities. First, NTA veterans like Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun assisted the programme in different ways, such as in the provision of materials and use of infrastructure. Second, the television content of the certificate course made NTA staff such as Akin Lewis, Dele Morakinyo, Olumide Bakare, Sola Fosudo, Felix Omuni, Victoria Owodunni, Tunji Fatilewa, Aso Douglas, Emmanuel Okotuate, all from NTA Ibadan and Port Harcourt to attend the programme as a form of finishing school. Third, professional filmmakers from overseas came to the university for various projects and were ever ready to assist in the exchange of knowledge and professional know how. And fourthly, the film boom in Nigeria at the time, and Bankole Bello’s participation in the process of production of films such as Ajani Ogun, Ija Ominira, Aiye, Efusetan, Jaiyesimi to name a few, in different capacities enabled him to take the students along, thus exposing them at an early stage to the practical processes of film making as well as to meet the distinguished professionals involved in the process. Between 1978 and 1981 when the first set of degree students graduated, the curriculum was still being experimented upon.
The students continued to be introduced to television, radio and film, with Segun Akinbola and Bankole Bello teaching the main content. At this point, the Film Unit of the university had moved to the Educational Technology Department in the Faculty of Education to help with the General Studies course which was compulsory for all students of the university. It involved the recording of the lecturers at the university studio and the replay in lecture halls with TV Monitors in order to cater for all the students in the university.
During this time also, a dark room was established at the African Studies building which allowed for the teaching of the students on how to develop still photographs. Some members of the first set like Bankole Olayebi and Gbenro Adegbola only took the course as an elective. The second set of students made up of Edmund Enaibe, Tejumola Olaniyan and John Owan, specialized in Television and Film. They graduated in 1982. By 1984, the fourth set of specializing students had also graduated.
Yet it must be noted that one major activity that convinced most of the students who later specialized in film, some of whom we celebrate today was again inspired by Wole Soyinka. His film, Blues For A Prodigal, was a project which he virtually gave the department to handle from its original play form to the screenplay, cast, film crew and location.
To a great extent, Blues constituted the practical classes for the programme from 1982 to1984, and Bankole Bello, who was the Technical Director of the film, deployed all his staff and especially students and staff of the department to the project. The project has remained the most unique experience, which contributed and enriched the agitation for the birth for an Ife Film School to this day.
Bankole Bello remembers fondly when he said in an interview that:
“I was most honoured to work on that film with Professor Wole Soyinka. It gave even the students the opportunity of a firsthand direct contact with the professional process of film making. From casting to production. It was a wonderful experience for the students….I remember how happy the students were especially two female students. They were not in the same set, but had the same zeal. Interestingly, they were both Foluke. There was Foluke Olajolo who ended up at DBN, a media outfit, and Foluke Adeshina, who is now Foluke Ogunleye. She remained with film and media studies. They were both very committed.” (Interview with Bello)
Foluke Ogunleye’s commitment paid off as she has remained with the department and emerged a distinguished Professor of Media Studies and Film. She has also remained not just as an inspiration but a bridge between the Department of Dramatic Arts, and the dream and vision of the founding fathers of the department that one-day the Radio, Television and Film programme will grow into a full-fledged Film School.
The celebrants
Most of those we celebrate today as role models and icons are those who have further inspired the idea of the Ife Film School through individual contributions to the development of filmmaking in Nigeria, or have gone outside Nigeria to make their own films. Awam Ampka and Niyi Coker, Jr. lead this pack. They both specialized in Directing and Acting at Ife at different times, and have also done considerable work in Playwriting and African/African American studies. Ampka’s first movie is Wazobia which is an adaptation of Tess Onwueme’s play, The Reign of Wazobia. He has gone on to make numerous documentary films, and has held Still Photo Exhibitions all over the world, and also assisted in establishing Schools of Drama, Visual Arts and Film. From his first movie, Happy Birthday Jerome, his numerous documentary films, to his most recent award-winning film, Pennies For The Boatman, Niyi Coker Jr. has remained a significant international filmmaker. The very accommodating programme in America where Ampka and Coker are both professors and teach at New York University and University of Missouri respectively, have expanded their area of specialization. We must also remember that Ampka and Coker played major roles in Soyinka’s film as actors, and like everybody in Soyinka’s film project, had been touched by the experience.
Those who remained in Nigeria like Mahmood Ali Balogun and Niji Akanni have continued to develop the film industry. Ali-Balogun’s most recent film, Tango With Me has remained with the 32mm format. Akanni has worked more with the Nollywood industry, first as Artistic Director which was a new creation to film making all over the world assuming responsibility for performance methods. He later went to India to train as a formal filmmaker. His films include Abobaku, Aramotu and his most recent film is Heroes to Zeroes. Other experts have emerged from the University of Ife experience, people like Bakre Adeoye, Toyin Ogundeji, Ahmed Aliu, Peju Ogunmola, Yemi Adeyemi, Yemi Solade, Femi Ogunrombi, and Segun Arinze who has served as President of the Nollywood Actors’ Guild, to mention but a few.
The Film School
So does the Ife Film School for which we are here to celebrate with a festival, exist? Foluke Ogunleye, the Director of the festival, writes: “This year’s edition is designed to foster the idea of an ‘Ife Film School’, which new-comers would aspire to be a part of, and the old-timers would be proud to be associated with.”
For now, it does exist in the consciousness and reality of those who believe that it does. It means that it existed for old-timers like me, since 1976, and for new-comers, even those yet unborn, shall find it. It has festered in the minds of many as a dream. It has inspired many, and has become a burning desire to people like Ogunleye.
So what are we doing here? All gathered all over the country and the world, looking smug with titles and varied experiences, to celebrate the figment of our imagination? Again Ogunleye the Convener replies: “We are of the opinion that the Ife Film School has come of age and it should be submitted to both critical and academic rigour, with the view to documenting through academic publications, activities of the Ife Film School.”
Here, Ogunleye expands the curriculum of the school, the content of the school, the credit hours, and lays claim to all the glory of the products, the distinguished graduands of the University of Ife, and says that the school is already functional, therefore it should be. And indeed, it should. The uses of film and what the Ife graduates are already using film to achieve presently in the modern world authenticates this claim. Therefore it is time for it to be real.
How about faculty? The teaching staff? Again, Ogunleye argues:
“The Ife Film School comprises both the trainers and the trained – those lecturers that taught students the art of filmmaking while making films themselves, as well as the students who trained under them and have been involved in various aspects of filmmaking.”
So if Ogunleye has all the answers, what are we doing here? What does she want us to leave behind after this festival? Why all the efforts to bring the faculty together?
The answer is simple: like a good administrator, she and her colleagues want to use what they have to get what they want. They want to tap into the entwined interconnectivity between the Department of Dramatic Arts which gave us all our degrees and our exposure, our history and our pride, our successes and our accolades, to ask for the expansion, the concretization of the dream school.
They want us to understand that a school which still has Wole Soyinka as Head of Faculty, and Ola Rotimi and Oba Segun Akinbola as spiritual fathers for Ife, must not exist in our minds alone or the burning embers of the figment of our imagination, but must be real. It is time for the course, Television and Film to graduate and become a full-fledged Department, a professional school of film, the Ife Film School. That is why we are here.
To work out the nitty-gritty of the school, the blueprint, the vision, the mission, the courses, course outline, all in line with NUC benchmarks, because our philosophy is clear, Ife always sets out to be the “best school in the world, where our students will be encouraged to discover, develop, explore their special creative and artistic strengths”. This is the hidden strength which Soyinka and the rest of our teachers implanted in us. The strength that has made the students from the Dramatic Arts Department achievers rather than empty barrels. This is the philosophy that sets dreams apart from reality, and shapes reality into success. This is why we are here today.
And in conclusion, if the dream of formally establishing the Ife Film School at the Obafemi Awolowo University is realized, it will remain a great validation not only to the efforts of the early great missioner’s, but also to future generations of contributors and students to come.
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