By Victor Enengedi
The Night of a Thousand Laughs founder Opa Williams is reportedly behind a new soap opera in Kenya.
Opa told Word Is, ‘I’m planning to shoot a Kenyan soap opera. It will be a Kiswahili and English production with 26 episodes that starts production later this month.’ He added, ‘The soap opera is titled Hujuma. It is a show about snitching, betrayals and a love triangle.’
Opa estimates that the Kenyan soap opera will cost about Sh6m (N11.2m) to shoot.
He continued, ‘I would like to develop the acting talent here. So I will use only two known faces in the acting arena then choose the rest from the Kenyan talent pool. I will choose faces from Nairobi neighbourhoods like South B, Kibera and Buru Buru. I want to cast faces that viewers are familiar with and feel like they know the characters. I’m going to get a Kenyan co-director for the production.’
The producer said that he developed the idea for the show when he attended a Discop conference in Nairobi. The Discop events bring together participants in the TV industry from content sellers, buyers and producers.
‘When I came for Discop six years ago, I developed the idea of shooting a Kenyan production here. In Nollywood we have a way of doing productions that do not cost an arm and a leg. And I wanted to bring the same dynamic to a Kenyan production. Come up with a low budget production that is of top notch quality… I would have kicked off the project earlier but then my focus was on shooting last year’s Night Of A Thousand Laughs.’
