 Today, we take on the topic, the new Africa, the role of writers in creating it. We will be looking at what role the movies produced, scripts written, and stories being told out of Africa play in globally elevating the Nigerian and African culture. And to do the topic justice, we have a very seasoned and young hand on the show with us. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. A brief introduction. My name is Chizobam of Vivo, your host on this segment, Culture Conversations. On Culture Conversations, we will be having meaningful discussions with Africans whose personalities and projects are doing fantastic work in the campaign to reshape the local and global view of the African and African culture. It will be an exciting couple of minutes so that I promise you, I think we can all agree that Africa's image is currently being saved by her arts and her culture of music, fashion, and also storytelling. And today, we have with us one of such prolific storytellers and film producers. Her name is Ollaladil Kidari, the first realness Netflix-trained story development executive. She cut her teeth in television writing on Tinsel and has written feature films in television movies such as Cold Willow, Paternity Deal, and Dead Right. She wrote and produced the hit short film After One, a film which explores a new mom struggle with motherhood and postpartum depression. She is also an author with three published books under her belt. Ollaladil is the founder of Brutique Story Development Outfit, a merged story company where she delightfully works with both emerging and established storytellers to see well-developed African stories on the big and small screens across the globe. Her mission is to empower and support emerging African storytellers in their quest to develop authentic stories for the big and small screens and also to bring the global audience closer to our rich and diverse African experiences. With that further ado, let's meet with Ollaladil. Hello, Darlene. Hi. Thank you so much for making our time to be here with us. Thank you for having me on the show. OK, so we'll start off with the questions immediately. So first Netflix-trained story development executive. Wow, how did that achievement change your, the game for you, as a paid writer and someone who is leading a cause, like you're leading for writers to be better respected and better paid in industries all over the world, not just Africa? How did that change the game for you? It did a lot. I think I want to start with saying thank you to Realness and Netflix for backing that initiative. We came at a time when I had just resigned from my nine to five advertising company. I just sort of knew that I had the steerings of a vision for storytelling in Africa. And I left the job, promising job, and it felt like, what are you out there to do? And then this opportunity came. So I applied, even though it seemed surreal, thinking I could be, you know, picked, selected for that made in addition. Yes, but it was right in time. And I must say it's giving me great leverage to take on advocacy for writers, not just Nigerian writers, because I then began to see that we kind of alone, we've got to stand as one. And some of the problems I've begun to travel around and I see that we're not isolated in our problems, actually, and some of the challenges that we have in the industry. And so now I'm beginning to learn that, you know, coming together as a collective, as Africans, we will do much more. We'll go farther, right? So, yes, we began to advocate for better pays for writers. I've had the privilege of staffing writers' rooms, being able to negotiate on behalf of writers, better fees, and also especially the crafts, you know, to better hone our crafts, to develop better stories. I'm passionate that we should not only be, you know, enthralled by the beauty of the film, the visuals, the production value, the stories, the blueprints, the architecture of a film. And that's where focus is as a company now. Yes, so in an earlier conversation we had, I think the first thing we mentioned, how appalled you were shocked really at what writers were willing to accept as payment, you know, for their... It's sad. I've staffed quite a couple of rooms and up till now I'm yet to meet a writer who's built me what had already negotiated on their behalf. Many times it's sad, but what we've now begun to do is, the traction we've now achieved is that when you show people what they are worth, they begin to rise up to it. The results that they begin to achieve, the products, which is the stories, become better. And then you realize that people have always wanted more. They've always had the idea that they could command more value. But, you know, after years of being suppressed, quietened, and told, yes, this is all you can accept. And it's amazing because it's a knowledge-filled world. You can Google what writers get in Hollywood. You can Google what writers get in South Africa. And you wonder why you come to Nigeria and a writer is still being told you deserve 10,000 Naira. I mean, I don't want to convert that to dollars right now to write a movie or to write an episode, you know. So what we are doing now is, as people realize, these writers realize their value, they're encouraged to do more. Yes, that's what's happening. OK, so can you, when you say that or when the confidence level is increased, the confidence level is increased, the story becomes a lot richer and everything, do you have an instance that that happened? So let me start from a conversation I was having in South Africa about the idea that people think writing is when you sit on your laptop and you begin to type. But the beginning of a story is when you're walking around on the streets and you're thinking, you're engaging with people, different experiences, when you get to travel, when you get to, you know. And so what told me about a writer, a Hollywood writer who had come to South Africa just for three months to immerse himself in the story world first and foremost. Now, if you've not even gotten enough money to put fuel in your generator, and I mean, I better pass my neighbor, you know. You're not thinking of traveling somewhere. And so we have plastic stories, regenerated in your bedroom, and yes, you cannot build stories out of nothing. At the end of the day, even when they are fictionalized, most times they are. And even when it's sci-fi, when it's, you know, world we've never seen before, it's still borrowed from somewhere. There's an origin somewhere. I've written stories that have had to do with sex, was sexual abuse. My first novel was drawn from my work with sex workers. That is leaving it, okay. You want to want to write what it means to live in a world of the 1% of the 1%, but they can't even drive past the gates of Banana Island. You know, these are things we're talking about. At the end of the day, when we empower writers to live rich, fulfilling lives, we would eventually be able to come up with better stories of Africa. They will be able to envision a better idea of Africa. You're talking about how we can use storytelling, you know, in nation-building. Building our continent, okay. And it's so important. I mean, wars are now being fought with stories. With stories. Yeah, I don't want to mention countries, you know. Spinning stories to win a war. Manipulation. Yeah, exactly. And it can be used positively or negatively. But I'm even saying that to use storytelling effectively in nation-building, in building a new narrative of Africa. For Africa. We need to be able to envision what that means. And if you don't live fully in the now, you're going to get stuck in the past. And if you keep living in the down side of Nigeria, Africa. We're keeping that. The monkeys and the bananas, you know, I won't, I won't go into it. Okay, so you work with young people, because this is very important, because what I find, what we find is that there's a knowledge gap, because there's not much of the knowledge that we have being passed down. Yes. And there's a lot of stories about the Gen Z and the Gen Y. There's a lot of older people are trying to keep their knowledge close to their chest, let them earn it, you know, and everything. But how are you and what are you doing to pass on this knowledge of self-respect as a writer and, you know, what to charge and how to write, as you said, enriching stories that change the Nigerian narrative. You know, I think first of all, obviously, there has to be a sense of patriotism in every writer. Yes. You can't be the Japan mindset and be writing on how you're not stuck, but, you know, so there has to be like a sense of patriotism. Is there something you do to instill that in them or awaken it in them, you know, with your young ones? How do you pass on this knowledge? That's so important now. I think that many motivational speakers and, you know, inspiring speakers as well will tell you that the joy and the pride of every leader is to have a successor. Yeah. And we're not doing well if we think we can hold on to the experiences, the knowledge that we've gathered over the years and we'll pass them down. Yes, yes. Times are changing. At Emerge, we recently started a workshop specifically targeted at young filmmakers, especially teenagers. Nice. And in fact, we're beginning to go to schools just to get people who are genuinely interested and gifted, you know, interested in the arts and entertainment industry. When we started, the industry was largely unstructured and unregulated. There was no formal training. So the veterans in the industry learned on the go, right? They didn't go to a formal school. So learn how it was to make movies. They just kept putting, you know, efforts into it. So how do we now have a new generation with access, exactly, with so much access, you know, to, there's a lot we can do online. There's a lot we can pass across now. And we're not doing much about it. So we are interested, you know, and we said that. And it's so funny, a maiden workshop, parents attended. And they ended up saying, please, we want to be, who would like to be trained as well. But at the core of this for us was, we've seen too many movies, young adult stories being told by adults. Would not understand the language of this generation. We have no business doing that. These guys have stories. And I also have a part of me, you know, that is a therapist, a family therapist, interested in seeing families grow. Seniors, young people have stories they're not telling. Stories they cannot tell their parents, okay? And then we sit down in the room and say, oh, we want to do a young adult story because we think we know what it means to be a teenager right now in 2023. And you were a teenager in 1915, you know? And it's not to say the old, we're casting our way. There has to be a bridge. And storytelling is that, you know, that way of, in fact, it's therapeutic for these people to share their stories and begin to impact people at a young age. That is what we are doing. And we need all the support because not everybody, not every teenager, they're not working, have the access to be able to afford these kind of trainings and workshops. So we are hoping that we will get collaborations, sponsorship, partnerships to make this happen, especially in under these, under certain communities. Yes. Because a lot of... Because a lot of... Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Damn on in the rough. A lot of world talent. We're seeing it in dancing, you know? You're saying... Spoken words. Exactly. So imagine if we begin to tap that into storytelling as well. It's a lot that we are living out of the table or living on the table as it were. Nice. So I always say that Africa is being saved by her arts and entertainment. Yes, it is. The Tewa Savages, the Davy Doves, the spoken word artists are just making me proud to be Nigerian. Do you understand? And it's possible for us to just be excited about this and just coast. And be like, oh, okay, they are doing it. But how do we leverage on this momentum and take it to the point where not just Africa becoming the world power, Nigeria becoming the world power it's supposed to be? Because every word is... I mean, there's a negative rhetoric for Nigeria, but then there's the positive. It's so powerful when I get to hear celebrities talk about the drive of the Nigerian. You understand? Have you seen them? The way they are driven, their culture. I'm like, this is beautiful. If the late Dorakrini, she was alive today. Yeah. But thank you all for starting this up in one way or the other. Branding Nigerians. Yeah, good people, great nation. Any day, any time. So how do you think we should leverage this, scale it, this momentum that it's being built now? Like I said, I was out of the country and I was asking, what are your favorite Nigerian artists? And not Nigerians. We're mentioning people like, you know, in Camorra, you know, it's amazing how far our storytelling has traveled. We don't even know how that is saving us. You know, how that builds an expectation when people meet with us. So the stories have gone ahead, even before they meet us. And I think it's so important that we begin to invest into that. That we'll be intentional about the kind of stories that we want to project to the world. It's so important. And so this is where, I mean, I will talk about policies, right? This is where we must begin to recognize that this industry is not a hobby. It's not a past time. You know, it's a multi-billion dollar industry all over the world. But we still treat writers. And I'm saying to writers, but I mean, I mean artists and creatives, but we still treat like, oh, oh, you're right. Oh, wow, that must be nice. Like, you know, so now what do you do? Oh, you're right. So that must be nice. I feel hobby. So okay, so what do you do now? I mean, and this is exactly until we deal with that. And you know, place policies, even in our educational system, that recognizes the weights, yes, of this industry and what that can do to sell us to the world, right? I say Nigerians are the biggest sellers of hope and the first to patronize it. That is why they love us. You know, we're so energetic, passionate. So we sell hope. And it's time to begin to package that and export that in the proper way. Okay, so you mentioned something about intentionality. Yes. We're tired of watching movies where it's a non-Nigerian plane in Nigeria and giving us an accent we don't know who gave it to them. We're also tired of watching movies where it's only the bad side of Nigeria being portrayed. In as much as we want to be truthful and intentional without being false, you know, we also want to ensure that we are not spoiling the country. You know, so what do we do to maintain that together balance of telling the truth as well as, you know, we'll wrap up on that question. You talked about patriotism. There are some countries that would always say, God bless this country. It's not always storytelling. Infusing the story that they wanted the world to hear. And I think that as writers, as much as we want to represent reality, I'm all for representing human stories, stories that people do not even understand. It's good. And we have stuck realities, right? Life can be real and messy. But the truth is that we must not leave it there. We have the responsibility to create hope. We have the responsibility to work with professionals in whatever field or space you're talking about. That story, what you're telling, to create hope, to elevate beyond what is and to begin to envision what is to be. Thank you so much, Lala. Is this a wealth of stuff to say? Thank you so much. I'll have you on so that you'll have more time to expand on everything. I look forward to it. Thank you so much. You've opened our eyes to a lot of stuff. Yes. You've opened our eyes to a lot of stuff. Thank you so much, Lali, for this conversation. We wish you so much, much success in your career. And your crusade. Yes. And your crusade. Thank you so much. So that is a wrap on what the show we have here today with us. A new Africa is emerging. There has never been a more opportune time to be proudly Nigerian and African. The baton continues with you in your own field and space. How are you helping to positively promote a rich African culture? We'll take a break. We come back, we'll wrap up the show. Stay tuned.