The 74th ART STAMPEDE

THE 74th ART STAMPEDE

The 74th Art Stampede of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) is scheduled to hold at the Ladi Kwali Conference Center, Abuja on March 11th, 2008 from 11:00 am - 3.00pm prompt. Organized in collaboration with the 5th African Film and Television Programmes Expo: BOBTV 2008 where the stampede will double as The Colloquium on African Cinema, this stampede which will be the first of the quarterly discursive forums on the state of the arts of Nigeria organised by the cultural and art advocacy organisation will be centred on the theme: Packaging African Cinema for a global audience.

In keeping with the stampede tradition, a lead paper will be delivered by Dramatist, Theatre Director, Culture Communicator and Activist, Ben Tomoloju who since 1987 has been involved with international presentations of Nigerian artistic and cultural productions and ideas around Africa, Europe, America and parts of Asia. His presentation will be followed by an interactive session involving a cross section of practitioners in the film industry and sectoral/guild heads in the industry. Questions and reactions will be entertained from the audience to wrap up the exchange and a communiqué will be issued on the resolutions arrived at.

CORA hopes through this stampede to interrogate matters arising on the creation and distribution of African films for global appreciation and patronage against the backdrop of the overwhelming global attention the Nigerian film industry has garnered over the past decade and its recent attempts at self regulation. The stampede will address the theme from two perspectives:

1. The challenges of producing value for the ever increasing viewership all over the globe.
2. The challenges of meeting the growing demand for African films across the globe.

“The March stampede has focused on the film industry for the past decade or so” says Toyin Akinosho, Secretary General of CORA and publisher of Africa Oil and Gas Report, “It is therefore only appropriate that we should collaborate with the organizers of BOBTV to amplify our-now-annual discourse on the 3rd largest film industry in the world through their unique platform. Judging from last year’s Colloquium on African Cinema on which CORA collaborated with BOBTV and which was highly engaging and well attended by practitioners, enthusiasts and students of higher institutions, this year’s edition will aggregate the best minds in the industry and it can only be expected that the outcome of their deliberations will define in clear terms what path the industry should follow in consolidating on its huge global acceptance.”