Billionaire oil magnate Tonye Cole delves into Nollywood

In recent times the Nigerian movie industry has witnessed massive growth churning out quality movies.

This is not unconnected with the influx of investors in the movie industry. Just as Nollywood enthusiasts are thanking their stars for quality movies, billionaire oil magnate Tonye Cole, the co-founder and Group Executive Director of Sahara Group has opted to sponsor the training of new movie makers.

Sahara Group sponsored Extraprenuer came up with the idea of training and injecting new breed of film makers into the industry so that movies from Nigeria will compete favourably with its counterparts across the globe at international film festivals.

Through Extrapreneurship training where 150 entries were submitted which later screened to 20 and finally three people made it to the finals. They are Joseph Duke, the winner; Chineye Balogun, the first runner up and Alabi Kayode, the second runner up.

Speaking on his involvement in Nollywood Cole said: “What we are doing is basically encouraging a whole new generation of film makers into doing it properly and understanding how to produce good films, how to mentor, how to be creative and how to find the right opportunities and tie those opportunities into talents. We are not filmmakers or actors, I’m sure I will be a big failure as an actor.”

Speaking on how he intends to achieve this oil magnate said: “What we have done is that we’ve started Extrapreneur and for the next six months there will be a close mentorship of the three finalists with film maker Kunle Afolayan depending on how far they can go then we will know where to go from there. You know when you see an opportunity and you use it well you will open doors to others out there and if you don’t you will shut the door. My belief is that this group here will give us the opportunity to say we are on the right track and that we can continue on the track.”

Executive Director of Sahara Energy, Tonye Cole, filmmaker, Kunle Afolayan, with the winner of Extrapreneur, Joseph Duke

Definitely before going into this new found interest Cole sure has been understudying the movie industry and observed some changes in the field. Asked of the movies he has seen in recent past he said of the new generation Nollywood movies:

"I think they are beautiful. I think we are movie away now from the normal stories that we used to hear before, the I kill your father, you kill my father and I catch you movies. But now they are getting contents, not only that, they are doing stories that affects our lives, that get our past documented and also show who we are and put it in an international level so people get to see what make us thick."

On the movies he had seen in recent past that are good he said: "76, 93 Days, The Wedding Party."

Among other monetary gains, the three finalists of Extrapreneur will have the advantage of going to the Cannes Film Festival in 2017. naij