By Adekunle Adedosu
Collins Onwochei, the Nollywood film producer and director known for his controversial movie, Room 027, released in 2013, has described the movie as a mistake.
In an interview with Vanguard, the actor cum movie director said he now understands the Nigerian market more and will never shoot a movie like Room 027.
‘Room 027 was a big experiment for me. A lot of Nigerians have criticised me and understandably so, because we are very protective of our culture and values. Nudity is not part of our culture. It is cheap publicity to sell a movie by doing some sexually explicit scenes.’
Although it beats logic to hear a producer admitting a story went in another direction other than the one set for it, Onwochei added: ‘The original idea was to do a story that the whole world can connect with. I didn’t want to do a movie that has a girl going to the bathroom without her clothes on. It doesn’t make sense. We watch foreign movies and we see how they do these things. We see them making love and nobody frowns at that. If you check statistics, Spartacus was one of the most viewed series that came into Nigeria. Millions of Nigerians viewed Spartacus and nobody complained about the nudity and violence. I felt I could tell a good story, I didn’t do a pornographic movie or soft porn, I wanted to tell a story with a touch of reality, but it backfired and I won’t do it again.’
The movie, shot and released in 2013 and featuring Tony Umez, Chinelo Ememchukwu and others, became intensely controversial due to the explicit scenes of sex and nudity portrayed.
