"Out of the mouth of babes"...the Fiyin Gambo story.

Unlike the music industry, the Nigerian film industry a.k.a Nollywood has been unable to breakout into the mainstream or gain a desired level of international recognition, save for a tiny minority of film makers who manage to have their films recognised at least in parts of Europe, albeit amongst Africans in diaspora and perhaps their European spouses, but non with the exception of the late great Hubert Ogunde can boast of high level cinema, done to very high standard worthy of nomination at the Oscars in the foreign films category.

Nigerian movies are riddled with errors, even from the very successful ones in the Industry, ranging from bad acting to poor editing, poor story line, hasty endings, predictability and very substandard technical aspect in terms of camera angles, reaction shorts, ariel shorts and the kind of creativity you would expect from so called seasoned film makers. From the beginning, you know the end.

Perhaps the most disappointing is the complete absence of CGI or any form of visual effect in Nigerian movies and any attempt at a remote form of visual effect in an average Nigerian film makes for uncomfortable watching.
 The weird noise and the 1980s cartoon animation makes you cringe, so it was with great delight and a thing of joy to see the emergence of young Fiyin Gambo, an 18-year-old engineering student of Covenant University gate crash into Nollywood with a bang literally with high level computer graphic imagery and visual effect to usher in a new genre of Nollywood films.

This young man apparently taught himself how to make films, but the plot, dialogues and shorts selection of his short films will put so called seasoned film makers to shame. His new film "Intercept" is a must see film...set in 2019, it explores how Nigeria could use technology to tackle terrorism and cyber crime in the future but what impresses me the most is how this film pushed the envelop and used technology to aid visual story telling. Not bad at all for a young man still receiving pocket money and living with his parents.

 I am particularly excited about young Fiyin because of his mission to make action movies from the Nigerian perspective. Many a time we’ve seen Nigerian film makers attempt to make action films like it were Hollywood and people ran about with toy pistols which they brandished like assault weapons or fight and car accident scenes that make you cover your face in shame…I still cringe when I remember some of these dreadful films.

Fiyin however, has decided to tackle these aspects head on, but without any intention to mimic Hollywood, after all every day in Nigeria is an action movie waiting to happen, so why not tell our own stories our own way, then Hollywood will see our unique and exciting life then start to watch our films but only if they meet the basic required standard at least.

I can only hope that Young Fiyin will be seen as breath of fresh air in the industry and not as some threat as is been alleged by foreign based film makers about Nollywood…apparently they'd rather continue to dish out mediocre films and hire their girlfriends and love interests with bad grammar and zero acting skills to play lead roles.

The opportunities available in the film industry as a revenue earner is immense, and with young talented film makers like Fiyin coming on board, perhaps the future of Nollywood is bright after all but what more…the future is here.

Fiyin is expected to showcase some of his work at a film workshop in Manchester later this year and will headline the African Film Festival UK 2017.