Fear of piracy: Tunde Kelani unable to release movie made four years ago

Tunde Kelani says a movie he made four years ago remains unreleased because of piracy. 

Kelani made this known at the mid-year edition of Yoruba Lakotun at Ethnic Heritage Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos.

“It is our collective responsibility to fight piracy because it has eaten deep into the creative industry,” the maker of ‘Saworoide’ said.

“Many people have gone bankrupt as a result of this menace.

“We have a movie made in 2014 but we have not been able to release till date due to the fear of piracy.”

Kelani urged Nigerians to “desist from purchasing pirated copies of creative works” and instead, “purchase original works from credible outlets” which will be a “great boost for the creative industry”.

According to the veteran filmmaker, “one of the movies of Mainframe Productions had up to five pirated versions, across major cities in Nigeria, in fact, some of the versions did not give appropriate credit to Mainframe Productions”.

Kelani also complained about the foreign movies that are being imported into Nigeria without “necessary authorisation”.

He said: “There are some movies that are shipped into the country without the necessary authorisation and all of these needs to be reviewed so that the nation does not keep harbouring unapproved visual contents.”