On the heels of Machel Mon­tano’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with world-renowned yo­ga and spir­i­tu­al icon, Sad­hgu­ru, and his #SaveSoil mis­sion, along with his per­for­mance in In­dia, Mon­tano’s 2015 film, Bazodee, has just raked in six nom­i­na­tions on the African con­ti­nent.

Last week, the Niger­ian-based Re­al­time Film Fes­ti­val (RTF) made the an­nounce­ment that Bazodee had been rec­og­nized in the fol­low­ing six ma­jor cat­e­gories:

● Best Lead Ac­tor

● Best Lead Ac­tress

● Best Sup­port­ing Ac­tor

● Best Sup­port­ing Ac­tress

● Best Screen­play

● Best Light­ing De­sign

Lor­raine O’Con­nor, one of the film’s pro­duc­ers, has de­scribed the mul­ti-nom­i­na­tion news as fol­lows: “The Bazodee nom­i­na­tions are re­al­ly heart­warm­ing, as this film brings a lot of joy and pro­motes love which is some­thing most need­ed in the world to­day: and the Caribbean is all about joy and love. It al­so shows that the film has a far reach, and this be­ing its African pre­miere, I am ex­cit­ed that the film was nom­i­nat­ed in those cat­e­gories, and is now be­ing ap­pre­ci­at­ed by an­oth­er au­di­ence and an­oth­er mar­ket.”

O’Con­nor al­so holds the po­si­tion as Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of C15 Stu­dios Lim­it­ed, a com­pa­ny which has in­vest­ed in Bazodee, and has as­sid­u­ous­ly been work­ing to­ward im­prov­ing the fi­nan­cial prospects for cre­atives across the Caribbean re­gion.

In light of the com­mend­able news for Bazodee, O’Con­nor and the C15 team are ex­plor­ing po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties for cre­ative part­ner­ships be­tween Nige­ria and the Caribbean.

O’Con­nor will be num­bered in the con­tin­gent rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in Nige­ria for the RTF 2022. She will be on the look­out for op­por­tu­ni­ties in which strate­gic part­ner­ships can be forged, and knowl­edge shared.

“We are very ex­cit­ed about the pos­si­bil­i­ties that can be gen­er­at­ed from our par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Re­al­time Film Fes­ti­val, open­ing the door to col­lab­o­ra­tions/co-pro­duc­tions be­tween Nol­ly­wood and the Caribbean.” Lor­raine O’Con­nor.

Echo­ing O’Con­nor’s views on the vast ben­e­fits of forg­ing a cin­e­mat­ic bridge be­tween the Caribbean and Nige­ria, is Sean Val­ley, one of the founders of Lan­ni­up Con­sult­ing. Val­ley has been in­stru­men­tal in con­nect­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­gent with Nol­ly­wood. He re­cent­ly ex­plained the ori­gins of his ini­tia­tive on TTT’s NOW Morn­ing Show.

C15 Studios - General Manager - Lorraine O'Connor

Val­ley stat­ed that he and his Trinida­di­an-based Niger­ian friend, Dr. Orit­se­timeyin (Oti) Es­i­ma­je, were dis­cussing a few years ago the fact that Nige­ria had sur­passed South Africa as the largest econ­o­my on the African con­ti­nent. Launch­ing from that, Val­ley and Es­i­ma­je de­cid­ed to ex­plore the es­tab­lish­ment of a trade cor­ri­dor be­tween West Africa and the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

“We de­cid­ed that Nige­ria’s cre­ative sec­tor - their me­dia and en­ter­tain­ment space - al­so re­ferred to as Nol­ly­wood, was where we want­ed to plant our flag.” Sean Val­ley.

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions, “the Niger­ian film in­dus­try pro­duces about 50 movies per week, sec­ond on­ly to In­dia's Bol­ly­wood - more than Hol­ly­wood in the Unit­ed States. Al­though its rev­enues are not on par with Bol­ly­wood's and Hol­ly­wood's, Nol­ly­wood still gen­er­ates an im­pres­sive $590 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.”

From a fi­nan­cial and cre­ative stand­point, Lor­raine O’Con­nor adds, “as Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of C15 Stu­dios, my mis­sion is to take Caribbean cre­ative tal­ent to the world by help­ing to de­vel­op a prof­itable Caribbean econ­o­my. This type of col­lab­o­ra­tion is ex­act­ly in line with my mis­sion of build­ing mean­ing­ful eco­nom­ic bridges be­tween the Caribbean and Africa, which can on­ly lead to suc­cess”.

O’Con­nor will be dis­cussing this and more on her month­ly on­line pro­gramme: The C15 Show with Lor­raine O’Con­nor. Cre­atives across the Caribbean are en­cour­aged to reg­is­ter for The C15 Show - Episode 8 (see: C15 Stu­dios on In­sta­gram for the free reg­is­tra­tion link), as O’Con­nor’s dy­nam­ic guests will be none oth­er than Stan­lee Ohikhuare, Founder of The Re­al­time Film Fes­ti­val, who will shed his in­sights on Nol­ly­wood’s rise to glob­al suc­cess; and Free­town Col­lec­tive’s Muham­mad Muwak­il and Lou Lyons, who would speak on strate­gi­cal­ly plan­ning one’s cre­ative re­gion­al and glob­al climb, with­out ever los­ing sight of one’s his­to­ry and cul­ture.

In a month such as Au­gust, in which many Caribbean na­tions cel­e­brate Eman­ci­pa­tion and In­de­pen­dence, this show’s top­ic is ex­treme­ly in­te­gral.

The C15 Show with Lor­raine O’Con­nor will be streamed Live from Nige­ria, on­line (Zoom and Face­book), on Wednes­day 24th Au­gust, 2022: 6 pm (TT time).

Bazodee will be screened at the RTF on Au­gust 26th. The re­sults will be an­nounced on Au­gust 27th, at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Fes­ti­val.

The Re­al­time Film Fes­ti­val 2022 will run from Au­gust 19th – 27th in La­gos, Nige­ria. The Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of FilmTT, Leslie-Ann Wills-Caton, and Head of Pro­gram­ming of Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT), Di­ane Robert­son, will ac­com­pa­ny Lor­raine O’Con­nor and Sean Val­ley at the RTF Fes­ti­val.