Omotola Jalade–Ekeinde Donates “Mother’s Love” Earnings To Charity

Veteran Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade has shared details of the earnings from her latest film “Mother’s Love.” She recently explained how much was left after the various deductions from its cinema run, and fans have been reacting.

Revealing that the movie made ₦103,094,663 at the box office, Omotola disclosed that after deductions covering exhibitors, distributors, printing, advertising, VAT, entertainment tax, withholding tax and other cinema-related expenses, the amount that accrued to the producers was ₦22,276,558.

The moviestar added that the entire amount was donated to Slum to School Africa, as previously promised by Red Hot Concepts.

Her words, “I have come back to you as promised to give account of the proceeds from ‘Mother’s Love’. At the end of our run, we had made ₦103,094,663.

After deduction from exhibitors, distributors, print, advertising, value added tax, entertainment tax and withholding tax, all deductions and everything else from cinemas, the money that was accrued to us as producers of Mother’s was ₦22,276,558.

So, a 100% of that money, as promised by Red Hot Concepts, was donated to the NGO, Slum to School Africa.”

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.