Cameroon adopts ‘Kollywood’ as film industry name

From Michael Ndi in Bamenda

 

Cameroon’s film industry which regrettably was very disorganized with any Jack and Jill passing for an actor or  actress and rocked by unceasing divisions over which name to use as appellation of the country’s film industry, has at last been restructured with ‘Kollywood’ adopted as the appellation of the Cameroon movie industry.

In a chat in Bamenda with the pioneer president of National Actors Guild of Cameroon, NAGCAM, Samson Vukah said before the reorganization of the industry, there was division amongst the stakeholders of the industry because some wanted ‘Camwood’ to be the name of the industry, while others preferred ‘Kollywood’.

In addition, Samson Vukah said they also created several guilds in the sector so as to put sanity in the business. “Now we have Actors Guild of Cameroon, Directors Guild of Cameroon, Producers Guild of Cameroon, Technicians Guild of Cameroon and Make-up Guild of Cameroon, among others.”

He said the national president of Kollywood is a certain Otia, an Anglophone of South West extraction who took over from Wanki Musi from the North West region.

Vukah added that the Producers Guild president is Angu Elizabeth from the North West region.

He was pleased to disclose that the sector is very promising given that several Cameroonian movies have already backed both national and international awards. “What we need now is for a channel to be projecting our films and make them popular. What CRTV chooses to project are not the best.”

He said Africa Magic used to project Cameroonian movies and apparently because of jealousy, it decided to pipe down when the authorities of that media house realized that Cameroonian movies started excelling given that Africa Magic is not a Cameroonian TV house.