Kenya — The Nigerian movie practitioners and their Kenyan counterparts have made case for both countries to institute a cultural programme as well as artistic collaborations in the movie industry to maximize the economic potentials in the industry.

The call was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a one day seminar on Nollywood (Nigerian movie industry) held at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi Kenya, organized by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) in collaboration with the Nigerian High Commission.

The communiqué which was agreed to by both parties observed that the cost of film production was high and appealed to the Kenyan government to establish a special fund to assist Kenyan movie makers.

It noted that the failure of the Kenya government to enact a policy on local content in television programming like it was done in Nigeria has contributed to the seeming low level of patronage and acceptance of Kenyan movies and therefore urged the government to address the issue.

Earlier, the Executive Director of the NEPC,David Adulugba said that a UNESCO report in 2010 indicates that Nollywood employs about 200, 000 people directly and over a million indirectly.

Represented by the Director, OCEO/incentives, Mr Henry Otowo, the Executive Director said in its quest to increase the basket of exportable products from Nigeria, and in line with their mandate of promoting non-oil exports, a maiden Nollywood Road Show was launched in Namibia in collaboration with the Nigerian High Commission in October 2010.

"The idea is to create an export path for Nollywood products as well as business contacts between Nigeria and our brothers in SADC whose patronage of Nollywood is phenomenal given the fact that a South African media giant, Multi-Choice constantly consume Nollywood products on a daily basis.

"In order to consolidate on the gains recorded from the Namibia Road Show, the council deemed it fit to embark on the current Road Show in collaboration with Nigerian High Commission in Kenya," he said.

Adulugba said that in spite of all the gains, the industry is still plagued with several problems which continue to inhibit its growth such as poor quality of production, piracy, inadequate funding, poor distribution channels among others.