•For COVID-19 Pandemic
Award-winning Filmmaker, Screenwriter, Producer, Film distributor and CEO Royal art Academy, Emem Isong, is one of the highly respected and influential movie producers in the entertainment industry.
She started her career in 1994 and has since written and produced several outstanding movies. This hardworking lady has over 500 movies to her credit. She also combines the rich cultural roots of the Ibibio people, where she is from and her degree in the arts to churn out the best scripts that have come out in Nollywood.
She founded The Royal Arts Academy in 2010, with interests in raising young and talented film creators and producers with the best tools available. Beside the school, being an academy, it’s also more like youths empowerment initiative. They teach youths the basics of acting and through the academy, she has discovered several ace actors, actresses in the Nigerian movie industry. The academy has produced award-winning movies such as Guilty pleasure, Bursting out, Kiss and tell, I’ll take my chances, Weekend getaway, Lagos cougars, and a host of others. This exceptional filmmaker has also pioneered the production of Ibibio- speaking movies such as Mfana, Uyai, Edikan, Uduakobong, and others. Her movies still remain one of the best to come out of Nollywood such as Ayama, Don’t’ cry for me, Knocking on heaven’s gate, Apaye, Silver lining, Traumatized,, Games men play, Men do cry, Girls in the hood, Games women play, Endless lies, Darkest night,, Behind close doors,, Masterstroke, Private sin and loads of others.
Emem Isong is among the movie producers who have come out to talk about the loss producers incurred during this lockdown in an interview she granted Channels TV. She stated clearly that, many producers have lost lots of money to this pandemic, according to her, many top Nollywood stars who have collected money from their sponsors and have paid some percentage off, may have to add more to complete such production, especially in her own case, “I was working on a particular television series and have paid some stars 60 to 50 per cent before the Covid-19 pandemic started. BNNow, I have to pay more, as many of them would have used all the money during this pandemic. I had to call off the location, knowing that the social distancing may be difficult to abide with, as stars may be forced to touch one another if the movie requires a romantic scene, so all these have affected us a lot. Also, the industry will never be the same again, as we may have to screen live for some movies as cinemas and movie premiere may not even be possible after Covid-19.it may be difficult to persuade people to come to cinema or movie premiere because of fear, though we will bounce back, it will take a while”.
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