Behind the scene | 24 January 2007 08:52 CET

I’M A GRADUATE, BUT DON’T KNOW WHERE MY CERTIFICATE IS —IROEGBU

To some movie practitioners, doing extra jobs is imperative because incomes generated from the industry cannot pay all their bills. But for popular and award-winning producer/director, Dickson Iroegbu, who is a Business Administration graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaira, he does not know where his certificate is and has no regrets about it.
Although he is comfortable and has won many laurels to his credit, the Imbaise, Imo State-born movie guru, believes he has not yet got to where destiny has preserved for him in the industry. Since he produced his first movie, Obligation last year, his profile has been rising by the day.

The result of his hard work, consistency and perseverance actually began to manifest when his movie, The Mayors, won four categories at the 2005 AMA Awards. He won the Best Screenplay, Best Picture and Best Director in Africa, beating someone he so much adores and respects in the industry, Tade Ogidan, in that category. A few months to that event, he had won the Best Director/Picture from the DSTV Awards. According to him, “creativity is worth zero naira. I have always believed and followed my destiny. I have always known that the position I find myself today is not where I'm going to be.

“So, I still thank God for his mercies. Look at me, I'm a graduate and sincerely speaking, I don't even know where my certificate is right now. And I have no regrets about that at all.” However, the dread-locked director, who started his journey into Nollywood as a script writer, said one of the major factors that has kept him going stronger “is the fact that I started from the grassroots and I learnt from the likes of Teco Benson and Chico Ejiro who I mostly address as the 'masters'.” Nollywood Reel gathered that his new movie, The Trinity, will be premiered soon.

Other sites The Nigerian Voice