The German government has invested 400 million euros in the training of some selected Nigerians in Film Culture and Archival Studies in Germany.
Director General, Nigeria Film Corporation (NFC), Dr Chidia Maduekwe, told journalists in Jos on Friday that the programme would provide deep knowledge and skills for the management of creative works and audio visuals.
He said that Nigeria was not a record keeping country, preserving and maintaining culture, hence the need for training Nigerians in archive keeping.
“The German government and other partners has invested 400 million euros for sponsoring 25 Nigerians in Film Culture and Archival studies in Berlin.
“This is designed to meet the trajectory necessities of providing depth knowledge and skills for the management of creative works and audio visuals.
“As a nation, we are naturally not very strong in preservation and maintenance of culture, we think archive is dead history.
“Archive is living, it lives for the future, we can make money by restoring our past legendary films, it is a form of economic diversification this administration is doing.
“When these people go to Germany and get trained, they will return to also train others, by so doing, we will become a record keeping nation.
Maduekwe stated that the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave a directive that the NFC be repositioned as the nations repository of all film archiving in Nigeria.
He added that the corporation had also secured and shipped over 157 Betacam tapes of vintage films to its German counterparts for the commencement of processes that will lead to their full digitisation.
He said that four out of the 25 beneficiaries drawn from the National Film Institute and the University of Jos, had undergone the training and had since returned, serving in the faculty of the masters programme.
Maduekwe said that the beneficiaries would leave in batches, stating that the second batch, consisting of five beneficiaries, would leave for Germany on Feb. 24 for the training.
One of the beneficiaries, Dr Dan Ella, who had just returned from Germany, thanked the German government and the NFC for the sponsorship, adding that the knowledge he acquired was already being put to use.
