Nollywood star actor, Bob-Manuel Udokwu was not surprised last Friday when  fate pitching him with actress Genevieve Nnaji as host of the maiden edition of the popular reality and celebrity show, Gulder Ultimate Celebrity Search, sponsored by Nigerian Breweries Plc.

This show, which makes its debut this year, according to officials of the brewing company,  will however not replace the front line show, Gulder Ultimate Search. The original GUS show made its debut seven years and will resume later this year.

There is no end to the lingering crisis in the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN). Instead of the deadlock which started early last year subsiding, it is escalating with every passing day. Today the Guild is at crossroad; orphaned by human circumstances. Before now, the battle was between Kanayo .O.Kanayo and Ejike Asiegbu. Later, Segun Arinze and Emeka Ike appeared on the scene.

All attention in Africa will certainly be on Ghana come 6th of March. The Independence Day celebration will be climaxed later in the night as attention will shift to the Mensvic Grand Hotel, East Legion for…

the Africa Movie Academy Awards nomination party in Accra, the biggest event gathering in Africa, the equivalent to the Oscar of Hollywood.

Event managers of the show RYTCONCEPT say the event is gradually taking shape with the confirmation of all the participation of all the big names and stakeholders within the African movie industry.

The Federal Capital Territory will in March 2010 play host to 36 professional film directors from the New York Film Institute for a month-long training for participants in the nation’s film industry.

The Minister of State, Federal Capital Territory, and host of the training programme, Chief Chuka Odom, disclosed this on Friday while inaugurating the 20-man inter ministerial committee to oversee the successful hosting of the programme.

About 500 participants will take part in the training, where they will be tutored in different aspects of film making, including directing, scripting, acting, broadcasting and general production and is to be sponsored by the Lagos and Rivers State governments, as well as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), alongside the Ministry of Information and Communications, as well as other government agencies.

Nollywood celebrated filmmaker, Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen is poised to raise the bar. He’s  currently making global statements with his latest feature film entitled, Home in Exile.

The big budget film which made headlines when it was nominated in the official selection at the Carlow Film Festival, Ireland, late last year was screened recently in Lagos, amid applause.

Speaking on the success of the film that is only out in cinemas,  Imasuen, with over 100 Nollywood movies to his credit as a director, said the movie tells the true Nigerian story of hard work and perseverance.

NOLLYWOOD, Nigeria’s film industry, is certainly going through a trying time. For some industry insiders, this present lull had been predicted based on inadequacies in the system.

Prime among the glaring laxities were the gaping flaws in a non-exerted effort to set the fundamental structures in local and international distribution and an abject disregard for new internet technologies which stood to undermine our simplistic forms of distribution.

Screenwriter, director and producer, Niyi Towolawi, is a Nigerian-British filmmaker and chief executive officer of Multimedia Company, HekCentric Production. He is bringing the cast and crew of his new work, Sole Redemption, into the country for what he described as “a Nigerian Film with a difference.” The Ijebu-Ode, Ogun state born film maker whose earlier works comprise the Hollwood, title, TWisTED is an advocate of using films and the mass media sector to improve Nigeria’s international image. REMI KOLEOSO met him in Ekiti where he is in search of ideal location for Sole Redemption and they discoursed his trade and related issues. Excerpts:

To say Nollywood stars have had their fair share of trials and tribulations in the hand of the media is an understatement. Some have been through the fire and are still smarting from the experience. The latest to be hit is popular Nollywood star and Glo ambassador Uche Jombo.