THE need for a harmonious business climate in the home video industry in the country engaged the attention of the Association of Movie Producers last Friday at a meeting with its Board of Trustees (BOT). Held at the O'jez Club, National Stadium, the event witnessed an impressive turnout of practitioners in the sector.

The occasion was chaired by Zik Zulu Okafor, who is also the interim chairman of the Board of Trustees. A number of topical issues aimed at placing the industry in a vantage position to reap the invaluable potential facing it, and also geared towards streamlining the administration of the sector that will ensure equity, justice and unity ultimately among the industry's stakeholders, were exhaustively discussed. These ranged from the most burning in the industry currently, being the issue of the Film Village, estimated to cost about N2 billion, and the question of where it would be cited. The N20 million Federal Government donation to the sector, and how best to utilise or share the windfall, the guiding or regulatory policy needed to sanitise it, as well as the institution of a professional regulatory body.
During the interactive session, participants also diagnosed the troubles bedevilling the industry such as its invasion by quacks and half-baked practitioners, crisis of confidence, factionalisation, quality of production, which tended to render the industry's administration and regulation ineffective through the years among other.

Mentioned also was the superfluous and false living of Nigerian actors and actresses, a situation where by when one sees Nigerian actors in the movie, they appear in expensive cars and wears, only to be a sorry paradox in reality, because of the poverty they are wallowing in.

The forum also canvassed the need for practitioners to be quality conscious if their output must compete favourably with those of Hollywood and Bollywood.

The conference also noted with concern the unprofessionalism being exhibited by Nigerian actors. For example, they alluded to the case of a lady actress who cries in the movie for close to three minutes often time.

Zik Zulu Okafor in his address said, "now they are going to build a Film Village, where you are going to earn big like in the US, between N20 to N100 billion. So if I were you, I will meet those who matter in the industry for good marketing strategy whereby N10 to N20 billion of that sum will return to the industry. We must know now where the Film Village is going to be built. Will we remain united and detribalised?"