There are times when you wish you never owned a phone, as a result of the distraction that comes with it. One of the ways people turn the technology into a nuisance is by listing you in social media groups you would ordinarily not want to be part of.

Especially with WhatsApp, new groups are created almost everyday. Some are even almost tempted to create a ‘toilet group’, so that you have to announce to members each time you want to ease yourself. Are you not bothered at times when your phone gives an alert, only to discover that it is one nonsensical message you have received upon checking it?
But there are surely some very important online groups, including professional ones and those that are connected by alma maters and ethnic backgrounds. One of such that has surfaced in recent times is the Ibadan Film Circle, a hub of seasoned film-makers who are really making a good use of it. Accommodating movie freaks and professionals in other related fields, the IFC has, in some seven months of its existence, become an arena where industry issues are thrashed.
The group was formed by celebrated director, Niji Akanni. Its members include seasoned producers/actors such as Tunde Kelani, Kunle Afolayan, Antar Laniyan, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Segun Arinze, Greg Odutayo, Abbey Lanre, Nobert Young, Demola Aremu, Abiodun Aleja and Adebayo Tijani. Others are scholar/artists such as Remi Raji, Gbenga Windapa, Sola Olorunyomi, Dele Morakinyo, Ropo Ewenla and Toyin Bifarin-Ogundele.
Weekly, the group hosts an expert who they interview on various areas of film-making and beyond. Among those who have been featured are Kelani, Abbey Lanre, Ropo Ewenla, Afeez Oyetoro, Windapo and Adefila. Also a few months ago, the IFC started its legacy series in which it has hosted, among others, arts and culture promoter, Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun. It is planning to have as its next guest veteran comedian, Moses Olaiya, aka Baba Sala.Well, wherever you have a congregation of artists like the IFC, you should expect constant cracks, wit and jokes. Among the culprits here are the IFC members who tagged themselves ‘Team Kero’, who chat on and on, romancing wines and spirits, till early hours of the next day. But the film-makers’ concern is far more important than joking, though. While they intervened when the issue of the appointment of the Minister of Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, was burning, they critically discussed the demolition of the Artists’ Village at the National Theatre, Lagos. Also, acting as the sector’s watchdog, the IFC has cautioned practitioners on some occasions. One of the early battles it fought, in this regard, is against those who ask young talents to pay money for audition.
Speaking on the foundation of the group, Akanni notes in an online interview with our correspondent that, perhaps, the best way to describe IFC is to use a popular phrase that it is an idea whose time has come.
He says, “For almost 10 years before my relocation with my family to Ibadan in July 2014, a few close friends and I had constantly agonised over the peculiar circumstances of life and living in Lagos, which prevented our desire to hold regular meetings and soirees to exchange ideas and compare notes around our mutual professional passions in the arts, namely film and theatre.
“As I settled down in Ibadan, I got inexorably drawn into a neat and active circle of old and new friends in the city, whose watering hole is a colonised space in the Senior Staff Club of the University of Ibadan. Here, almost every other night, this informal group of young, not-too-young and visibly old academics gather in a convivial atmosphere that sustains their acquaintanceship and fuels their passion for intellectual debates on just about any topic that happens to float by. Possibly influenced by my own professional calling, I found that almost every time, my presence in this circle would invariably invite several debates around theatre and film practice in Nigeria.”
The gathering soon started accommodating film screening that attracted more enthusiastic audience.
“I drove back home one night from one of these film screenings, thinking how more highly enriching and beneficial it would be for film and theatre practice in Nigeria if many of my Lagos-based friends and colleagues were to partake in these sessions of serious and intellectually uplifting discourses. That night, June 20, 2015, I created a WhatsApp group and named it the Ibadan Film Circle, inviting as members all the friends and colleagues who had been running/facilitating/attending the Ibadan film screenings as well as most of my other friends and colleagues in Lagos and elsewhere whose views and professional standings/reputation I believed would add value to the ‘community’ of arts visionaries being birthed in Ibadan.”
Akanni, producer of award-winning films that include Aramotu, says the group is some 97-member strong now. Also in the IFC are Tade Ogidan, Greg Odutayo, Femi Odugbemi, Yinka Akanni, Jahman Anikulapo, Tunzi Azeez, Tina Mba, Ehizohie Ezebolo, Greg Odutayo, Omowumi Audu, Tunde Olaoye and Judith Audu, who anchors the Wednesday hot seat session.
Akanni adds, “What do we do in the IFC forum? An indication of IFC’s raison d’etre could be glimpsed in its motto (coined by Tina Mba): ‘Learn, Laugh, Connect’. It is a virtual ‘community of artistes in discourse’ where every shade of opinion/topic on the arts, theatre and film practice in Nigeria finds ample space to be discussed, opposed and debated.”