Why everyone has to see The New Patriots movie – Rotimi Adelola

Rotimi Adelola is a filmmaker and Producer of The New Patriots, a movie which features talented thespians including Akin Lewis, Lateef Adedimeji, Bimbo Oshin, Dele Odule and Taiwo Ibikunle. In this interview, he speaks about this anticipated masterpiece.

Tell us why you ventured into Nollywood?
My venture into filmmaking is out of passion. Before l gained admission into the university, I was a regular customer at Rainbow Cinema Mushin and Super Cinema Surulere in Lagos. I watched mainly Indian movies. Those experiences wired my brain cinematically. In fact, my initial interest as a teenager was to be an Actor.

Tell us how has year 2020 been for you?
Year 2020 has been a wonderful year with its peculiarities. We planned to move to location in March but the lockdown prevented us from doing so until July. Between March and July the only thing l could do was to review and review the film script online with Ade Adeniji the production Coordinator. And since shooting finished in July post-production took greater part of my time.

Your cast for The New Patriots is quite mind blowing, why did you take up this project?
Only tested thespians could bring out the real gist of the story. In collaboration with the Director and Coordinator a lot of time and effort was deployed to casting.

Share with us the titles of your past projects.
I have done two movies before The New Patriots: Orioye and Kerede. Orioye was in DVD while Kerede was exhibited online and on African Magic Yoruba Channel. We have also produced a talkshow titled Ladies’ chat currently showing on ITV Benin. Number 9 film studio also created psychotechnologyofsuccess which is a series of short lectures on the application of psychological principles to personal life. The programme is on YouTube.

What was the challenge encountered in trying to adapt Nnenna’s book into a movie?
The movie THE NEW PATRIOTS was inspired by a novel by Nnenna Ihebom titled PATRIOTS AND SINNERS. The idea of adapting a book was planted in me by Tunde Kelani while l was a student at the Mainframe Media And Film Institute Abeokuta in 2017. I obtained a large number of novels by African authors and Patriots And Sinners was most compelling. Tunde Kelani advised that l must get the permission of the author as the first step. So l located Mrs. Nnenna Ihebom in Owerri and travelled there to sign copyright agreement with her in March 2017. After the agreement l treated the book and a script conference was organised with full participation of some of my teachers and colleagues at the film school : Tunde Kelani, Niji Akanni who taught Directing; Mohammed Sule who taught Script Writing and my two colleagues Jibola Soyele and Dami Taiwo. After the conference Niji Akanni did the screenplay. It was quite a tedious and tiring process but for the encouragement of Tunde Kelani ( TK) who showed keen interest in the project.

How has attending Main Frame Media and Film Institute inspired your works?
I wouldn’t have done anything in filmmaking if l had not attended Mainframe Media And Film Institute(MFMI). The personal interest of TK in every student’s idea was an elixir for progressive creativity. When l was working on KEDERE, TK took the time to go through my draft scripts. I did not proceed to location until he adjudged the script cinematic. Same thing with The New Patriots. TK gave me a sample agreement with the author of the book. He was also the witness when Niji Akanni and l signed a screenplay agreement.

As a business man and a producer. How do you relax?
I relax by listening to Fela’s music.
We talk about challenges often. But can you share with us the good things about Nollywood and making movies in Nigeria.

Nollywood has demonstrated that Nigerians are resourceful, creative and productive. The challenge of Profitable Marketing of movies is an opportunity for investors to create more Cinema screens.

Filmmaking involves multitudes and it is an employment generator. One way of addressing youth unemployment is forv government should build Cinema houses and lease them to professionals to manage. With the rate at which Nigerians are releasing movies, a Cinema house in each local government area will catalyse gainful employment for a large number of young film makers.

In what way would you want Nigerians to support your work?
The New Patriots is an advocacy for youths to responsibly participate in the political process. Instead of riots and meaningless protests, youths should leverage their population and engage in mass education of electorates not to exchange their voters cards for money nor sell their votes . That is one of the messages . Therefore, l appeal to individuals and organisations , that are committed to meaningful democracy , to support The New Patriots so as to make it a catalyst for social change.

Tell us about your worst movie-making experience so far and how you managed around it?
Some scenes were not recorded properly. So we mobilize and moved to location again for a re-shoot which turned out to be worse.