Now Showing: Amazing Grace
This week, I had a few Tsotsi moments. The last time I had such a feeling of excitement/rush of pride was when the movie Tsotsi came out in limited release. Finally, I got to watch an African movie with real Africans in an American movie theatre. The reason for my joy this week is that the independent movie theatre by my house is advertising the movie, Amazing Grace. I have heard so much about Jeta Amata's movie being the first Nigerian film that was shot for the cinemas and not just for release on DVD. I have really been looking forward to seeing the movie because I heard that the quality is a huge step up from Nollywood home videos. The photography and acting are supposed to be amazing. So, when I saw Amazing Grace on the marquee, I thought my moment had finally come to see a Nigerian film on the big screen. Even NPR (National Public Radio) had been advertising the movie all week and that just about sealed it for me.
So therefore (as our people say), I was looking forward to perhaps seeing it this weekend between getting my hair braided and doing my regular weekend runs. I called up my Naija movie buff friend and told her that there was actually going to be a Naija movie showing at the indie theatre. In fact, I told her that she and her husband could drop off their baby with me and go watch it together. As I was checking for showtimes, I realized that the movie in question is Amazing Grace shot in the UK and not The Amazing Grace shot in Calabar by Jeta Amata. So much for spreading gist before checking your facts. That's why it's not good to spread rumors o. I was going to email a bunch of my friends and suggest we go watch it together. Thank God I hadn't done that yet. In many ways, I am disappointed because I thought Naija could have a Tsotsi moment. I wonder what would it take to bring the better Nigerian movies to a theatre near me. Just last night on World News Tonight with Charles Gibson, they talked about Indian movie night at some New Jersey movie theatre. How lucky are they? The main focus was on the Indian food served at the movies. Apparently, popcorn is not the snack for moviegoers - it's something made out of potato. Whatever. Who cares? They are so lucky to be able to watch Bollywood movies on the big screen. It would be nice to have just one (good)Naija movie showing.
posted by Gbemi's Piece @ 10:52 AM
3 Comments:
I made that mistake too and had not paid much attention to it until I read your post. I knew that I had read that Jeta Amata had released a movie called Amazing Grace and had noticed in the promos that there was no mention of him or Naija...in fact the selling point of the film is that the star previously acted in The Fantastic Four - I guess it must be a great marketing technique. I had kept it to myself until now, simply because I don't go to the movies anyway and I was not planning on seeing it until it was on DVD at the very least. Thanks for the clarification
Jola - No wonder that guy looked familiar. He was in Fantastic Four. I am still looking forward to seeing Jeta's version even if it's not at the movies. It would have been nice all the same.
Right!
These people are thieves. I saw the poster ads for this Amazing Grace movie and honestly I was shocked. The entire ad, the gold background and even the rendering of the text "Amazing Grace" is almost an exact copy of Jeta Amata's production. I simply couldn't believe my eyes. Isn't that what is called plagiarism? They didn't mention anything about the nigerian production, no credits, nothing, nada, nil... Its wrong!
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