Tunde Kelani, one of the leading filmmakers in Nigeria’s Nollywood – the local movie industry -, has launched a web TV platform.
The web TV platform launched over the weekend and if you care to visit www.tundekelani.tv right now, you are sure to find a sizeable amount of Tunde Kelani’s filmography on there, accessible for free. I have spent a good part of this morning watching a particularly hilarious series on the website titled Yeepa.
The website itself is a simple wordpress site and currently features 20 odds titles from the producer embedded from YouTube. According to Shadow and Act, the complete catalog of Tunde Kelani movies will be on the platform and his future releases will likely be released exclusively on the platform as well.
Tunde Kelani says the web TV platform is part of a personal drive to cut pirates’ activities in the industry. “Distributing films or other content physically are becoming increasingly difficult; revenues are lost on a daily basis and content owners are at the mercy of the menacing activities of pirates,” Tunde Kelani said. “I think it is just natural, expedient and sensible to take content closer to the consumers on demand, and in terms that suit all the parties involved.”
Kelani is the CEO of the movie production company, Mainframe Movies, known to produce some of the best Nollywood classics including Saworoide, Agogo Ewo, Maami, Dazzling Mirage and other drama series. These movies are filmed in the Yoruba language of western Nigerian but almost always have a country-wide appeal.
It’s not the first time, the producer is putting his work online for free. In 2012, he released O Leku – one of his titles that tells a classic love story – on YouTube to celebrate the year’s St. Valentine’s day.
It’s unclear yet what the end game is for tundekelani.tv – with reports alluding to a VOD service experiment – but this could be really exciting.
Image via: Smart Monkey
