{"id":231923,"date":"2025-07-06T07:49:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T07:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/treat-entertainment-like-crude-oil-filmmaker-pascal-atuma-tells-fg\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T07:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T07:49:18","slug":"treat-entertainment-like-crude-oil-filmmaker-pascal-atuma-tells-fg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/treat-entertainment-like-crude-oil-filmmaker-pascal-atuma-tells-fg\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Treat Entertainment Like Crude Oil,\u2019 Filmmaker Pascal Atuma Tells FG"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Treat <a href=\"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment<\/a> Like Crude Oil,\u2019 Filmmaker Pascal Atuma Tells FG<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nigerian filmmaker and entrepreneur, Pascal Atuma, has urged the Federal Government to give the <a href=\"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment<\/a> industry the same level of attention and investment it accords the oil sector.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Atuma believes that the creative space has become a major global economic force and wants the Nigerian government to tap into it.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s <em>Sunrise<\/em> on Saturday, Atuma said the government must look beyond oil as a sole revenue source and recognise the potential of Nigeria\u2019s creative economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d say this directly to the government \u2013 they think oil is the only source of income. The <a href=\"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment<\/a> industry is huge. The film industry is big,\u201d he said on the breakfast show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook at music, comedy\u2026 they should look at the creative industry in its entirety and invest, including football.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He cited the ongoing FIFA Club World Cup in the United States to highlight the economic potential of <a href=\"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Atuma said, \u201cJust for playing in the quarter-finals, clubs earned $13.1 million. If you give a Nigerian club that kind of money\u2014converted to naira\u2014is that a joke? There is money in the creative industry, but the government has to make it easy for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Govt Policies Matter\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"We Want To Make A Film Peculiar To Africans Yet Still Universally Accepted - Pascal Atuma\" width=\"740\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2RQvZiNJ8fQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p>\n<h3\/>\n<p>According to him, government policies are critical to making this happen. He urged the Nigerian government to enact policies that would make the industry more attractive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not just about funding. Policies matter. In the US, some states are union and some are non-union,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen our directors\u2019 guilds and producers\u2019 associations come together and structure the industry properly, Nigeria can become a \u2018union state\u2019 in film production. That will attract co-production treaties, which are only possible through government-to-government agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He, however, challenged filmmakers to also take responsibility by building proper structures within the industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt starts with us, the filmmakers. The structure is beginning to come together, and once it\u2019s solid, we can then approach the government to do what others are doing. In Canada, for example, there are yearly grants\u2014not loans\u2014for qualified filmmakers to produce films,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Imported Wives<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Atuma recently released a movie, <em>Imported Wives,<\/em> which premiered in May. It tells the story of a man who brings a wife from Nigeria to Canada, only for her to turn against him after being influenced by other Nigerian women there.<\/p>\n<p>It stars Nollywood A-listers Nancy Isime, Omoni Oboli, Joseph Benjamin, and Funky Mallam.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on his new movie, Atuma explained that it was inspired by recurring social issues first tackled in his earlier film, American Nurse, produced over 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter the UK police issued a memo asking Nigerian women to stop calling them to intervene in domestic issues\u2014it went viral\u2014I had a conversation with my brother.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe agreed it was time to revisit the story, but with a new perspective. So we created Imported Wives, a film that mirrors societal issues not only affecting Africans but also Chinese, Indians, and Caribbeans,\u201d the filmmaker said.<\/p>\n<p>Atuma added that the film seeks to correct harmful societal norms and said, \u201cWe now have 16-year-old girls who can buy cars and houses for their parents, and it\u2019s normal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMeanwhile, love is being thrown out for financial liberation. Some people marry for poverty alleviation or migration. We want to hold up a mirror to society with this story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment<\/a>,FG,Nollywood,Pascal Atuma<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelstv.com\/2025\/07\/05\/treat-<a href=\"https:\/\/abianewscentral.com.ng\/entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment<\/a>-like-oil-filmmaker-pascal-atuma-tells-fg\/&#8221;>Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Treat Entertainment Like Crude Oil,\u2019 Filmmaker Pascal Atuma Tells FG \u00a0 Nigerian filmmaker and entrepreneur, Pascal Atuma, has urged the Federal Government to give the Entertainment industry the same level of attention and investment it accords the oil sector. Atuma believes that the creative space has become a major global economic force and wants the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,233,344,345],"class_list":["post-231923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-fg","tag-nollywood","tag-pascal-atuma"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}