More young talented people would be engaged in AFRIFF – Afie Braimoh

As the conversations around the success of the 2017 edition of AFRIFF continues – a success story described as “a million miles ahead” by the founder, Chioma UdeAfie Braimoh, who is the Director of Operations talks about her duties, problems and the road to a fruitful ‘festival of African films’.

Tell us about your office as the Director of Operations of AFRIFF

I have been with AFRIFF for about four years now. AFRIFF has been great from day one, and I have had the privilege of being instrumental to the continued growth of AFRIFF. But, more importantly, bringing about structure in the organisation, as well as looking for bigger and better ways, of course, following industry standards to grow AFRIFF. My role is to facilitate a successful film festival. Basically, what that means is coordinating all the departments and making sure that we execute flawlessly.

Every single year, we always try and strive for better every year.

It’s a lot of work, because, you know, we have great people and great teams, but, in an environment like Nigeria where things may not work within your control. You know a lot of situations where sometimes you are fighting fires and just trying to do what you can, using the resources that you have.

But, overall is to facilitate a successful film festival and, continue to align with the goals of the festival, as it makes its mark on the African stages and the world global film stage.

Throw light on internal and external problems you face

One of the big things we face is financial resources.

If you look at the demographics of the team, you would notice that it is the same team that has been working with us for years. So, everybody in the team knows exactly what to do – in our sleep, we would deliver AFRIFF.

You see, when you have a good team, you are 80 percent there, the other 20 percent that can put you off your feet is the when you do not have the financial resources to put things together.

That has been a toggle with everybody, because without money you are dead in the water in Nigeria.

And remember that the festival runs for seven straight days. Think about the components, the dynamics and the people you have to remit money to so many people; not forgetting the venue, the logistics and so on.

Using the 2017 edition, access the success of AFRIFF

Wow! Let’s go back to 2016 for a moment.

I spoke to Chioma about the level AFRIFF is today. The workshops, very strong topics that people were engaged with, look at the students, the classes, the kind of films that people watched, from the opening film to the closing film.

That closing show we closed with was a milestone for AFRIFF.

For the team though, we are not focused on what people say, we are more interested on making sure the film festival is successful.

So, we did not realise how big the festival was until after the 2016 edition.

For the 2017 edition, the biggest thing that happened is the collaboration between last year and this year.

We had a South African Day, a USA Day, a French Day. How do you top that?

That tells us that AFRIFF is here. Everyone now recognises what AFRIFF is and what it stands for. A lot of people now want to be actively part of it, as partners, as influential partners.

With these collaborations, there is a lot more that is going on; the sky is the limit. It also provides a platform for filmmakers to be able to make a difference and compete even on the world stage.

How do you ensure things don’t go wrong during the one-week long festival?

Well, every organisation faces major problems. It is not a peculiar thing but, how you manage it is the important thing.

Things actually go wrong on the backend, but as a team we try as much as possible to manage it.

Hints of what to expect next year.

Now, if I told you there would be no need for you to attend right?

But, just know that the tide has turned. There would be more collaborations, films are going to keep coming.

And considering that AFRIFF has set the bar in delivering quality films that would be showcased, expect more and more quality films; bigger and better shows, adding creativity into the shows; the topics are going to continue to stay where it affects the filmmaker and so on.

We are also going to take one project one step further – engaging the young people.

Basically, everything you see today, you would see a lot more next year.

Thank you…

Sponsorships and media partnerships are becoming stronger, and thank you YNaija for being with us through these years.

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