My Cinema Rant Wasn’t Directed At “Ajosepo” Producers – Jaiye Kuti

Jaiye Kuti

Nollywood actress Jaiye Kuti has said that she never attacked producers of “Ajosepo 2: The Gathering.” She recently denied suggestions that her social media post about the cinema showtime of her movie, “Jaiye Monje The Anniversary,” was directed by competing filmmakers.

Reacting to the criticisms that trailed her rant, Jaiye simply noted that her comment was misunderstood because she only targeted Nigerian cinemas with her social media post.

Kuti maintained that her observation stemmed from her concerns over cinema scheduling and was not directed at any film or filmmaker.

Her words, “I wrote in my language Yoruba AJOSEPO which could mean many things, what I meant was our collaboration with cinemas, yet some people twisted it to mean a movie.”

WOW.

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.