Veteran Nollywood actor, Jide Kosoko, recently appeared on Channels Television’s Sunrise show,where he was asked to share his thoughts on Kannywood, the Northern region’s film and entertainment industry.
In a candid response, Jide Kosoko revealed that he has no interest in Kannywood, and went on to explain his reasoning behind this stance.
During the interview, Jide Kosoko was asked “I have this question of Kannywood. There are those who say that the integration of the northern theater practitioners to the Nigerian, so to speak, industry is slow or almost not happening as significantly as it should, what’s your take on that?” That’s when he replied saying:
JIDE KOSOKO: I don’t subscribe to it. It’s not necessary. How many wood do they have in India or America? There is no need for that.
We have, let me say this, some people will tell you the history of Nollywood, they would say it started in 1992 when we have films since 1970s, commercial films. Ajani Ogun was the first commercially successful movie in this country, that was in 1976. Now because production now came in video in 1992, we now say that is where we started from. That is not the issue but the argument is we have all agreed to that name Nollywood, we should all stick to it.
There should be no separation but I don’t know why these guys decided to do that anyway and they get a lot of sponsors from their people, unlike even the Nollywood itself. But the truth is we don’t need to separate. They have Kannywood, we have Nollywood, and we will now say what? Yorubawood or what?