October 30, (THEWILL) – Nollywood filmmaker, director and producer, Steve Gukas, has embarked on a new project he calls ‘First Features’ to mentor upcoming directors and guide them through the intricacies of the film industry—an opportunity he missed in his early career.
The filmmaker from Plateau State, who believes that films should be used to address the ills of society, revealed this to Premium Times in a recent interview.
“The idea was to define, nurture, support, train and provide an enabling platform for the next generation of film directors. So that is the initiative that First Features is. It started about three years ago when we had a year of identifying the talents, providing training, working on a story, and then beginning actual production. We produced three of these films last year. And we resumed this year with the fourth and are getting ready for the fifth,” he said.
“I came up with the idea of ‘First Features’ because, starting as a director, I didn’t have a platform that would make it possible for you to find support and people to hold your hand through the first experience for making your features, for that matter and any time at all. I had to go to film school, come out of film school and find money for ‘A Place in the Stars’, which is my first directorial feature after film school, having done ‘Keeping Faith’ before attending film school.
“I know that we did get a window of what training and support could be with the New Direction Initiatives with M-NET Africa, where aspiring directors and writers were shortlisted and provided with training to some degree. But only the person who came out tops got to direct short films”.
He also said that he “was worried about the degree and extent to which people provide training, as it has become a revenue stream for some people whose idea was to provide training to make money. Still, more was needed to support the people who were trained on how to get into the industry and how to progress. I had always thought of training younger directors, not just teaching them but also following up with making it possible for the person receiving their training to make a film, which gives them a calling card for the industry. And the rest can be unto them”.
Speaking further on the project, the filmmaker said, “So, I have always nursed the idea of doing this. The idea metamorphosed and became ‘First Features’, and based on that, we called for first-time feature directors. These people have yet to make a feature film, but the criteria was to create a short film before.
“We got over a thousand submissions and had to bring it down to twelve, following different stages of interviews, tests and conversations. Those twelve people merged with twelve writers and the writer-director team, then went into the development of the different feature projects we are embarking on, and we have twelve of those.
“The first three films featured several Nollywood talents because what we are doing is more than just providing you with the resources and the platform to make the movie.”
Although the filmmaker said the project is hugely capital-intensive, Native Films provided a large chunk of the funding and Michelangelo Productions.
“The joy of seeing these young directors go from doubting themselves to becoming fully confident on set and seeing their imaginations come into reality is very gratifying; it is something I enjoy watching, and I say that more because I technically hand-hold them all through the training process as a director myself,” Steve said.
