My father discouraged us from acting, filmmaking – Kunle Afolayanr reflection on our future, says CCI

By: Ekaete Bassey, Oluwapelumi Adeniran

Award-winning filmmaker Kunle Afolayan has revealed his late father, Adeyemi Afolayan, though a filmmaker during his lifetime, vehemently discouraged them from pursuing a career in acting and filmmaking.

The ace movie producer, during a chat with media personality Chude Jideonwo on #WithChude, discussed the legacy of his father and the work he is doing as a filmmaker and a businessman.

My dad discourage me from acting- Kunle Afolayan

He explained his father’s discouragement was premised on the opinion that they weren’t lucrative seeing they made films with beautiful stories but never really got the fulfillment they desired in term of monetary gains.

But Afoloyan, whose mind was made up already to be a filmmaker and not an actor, said he geared himself to do things differently by capitalizing on what others were not doing right or paying attention to.

I geared myself to do what other were not paying attention to differently.

“He died at the age of 56, that is pretty young. But I think he had to die for some of us to be doing what we are doing today. When people die, it is because their time is up. The reason there is continuity is that his name is being heard everywhere because of what we are doing now,” he said.

"When he was alive, my father completely discouraged anyone of us from going into filmmaking or acting. He said there was no money in it. These were the things I learnt that helped me structure the business side of what I do because I don’t want to end up like him".

“So, I said let me capitalize on what people are not doing right and things they are not paying attention to. And I picked some of those things, like, why don’t they grade? At that time, nobody was grading”.

“All the films I have done in my life, people have always said it is not for the mass market. And I say, “Okay, but it is for international markets and intellectual markets”.