Kazim Adeoti speaks on rise of epic movies in Yoruba industry, working with Mercy Aigbe, and more

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Nigerian filmmaker and actress Mercy Aigbe’s husband, Kazim Adeoti, recently shared his thoughts on some trending industry topics
The executive producer and marketer shares his feelings about the apparent rise in the making of epic films
Adekaz also shared his thoughts about becoming an actor as well as creating content with his second wife online, among other things

Nigerian filmmaker and movie marketer Kazim Adeoti, aka Adekaz, recently spoke with Legit.ng at the 4th edition of the Peace Anyiam Osigwe (PAO) Nigeria Digital Content Regulation Conference, which was held in conjunction with the National Film and Video Censors Board on November 14, 2024, in Lagos.

The filmmaker shared his thoughts on being called an executive producer instead of a marketer.

According to Adekaz, who is also husband to actress Mercy Aigbe, right now in the entertainment industry, everybody is a marketer because the term is no longer peculiar to the just ‘regular’ marketers like it used to be. He said that every filmmaker now does marketing.

Mercy Aigbe's husband Adekaz speaks on becoming an actor, rise of epic movies in Yoruba industry and more.

In his words:

“Technically, everybody is marketing right now, be you a producer or executive producer, we are all marketers right now because that word ‘marketing’ is not peculiar to the so called marketers like it used to be. Everybody is distributing, producing, marketing, promoting, advertising. That's what every filmmaker in Nigeria does right now.”

Kazim Adeoti shares reason for becoming a content creator

Kazim Adeoti took many Nigerians by surprise after he let go off his ‘serious’ persona to take on different funny roles while creating content for social media, particularly to help his wife, Mercy Aigbe promote her movies.

According to the movie marketer, change is a constant thing in life and anybody passionate about their business would do anything legitimately possible to get it the attention it needs.

Adekaz recounted how marketers used to promote movies in the past by going around and sharing souvenirs to people just to create excitement for the product. He explained that things are done digitally now and it reaches a wider audience.

He said:

“One thing that’s constant in life is change and if you're somebody that's very in tune with what you do, you should recognise that you have to do whatever it takes legitimately to push your brand to the audience. If you look at what we used to do as marketers or distributors in the past was more of physical marketing by going to locations, distributing calendars, books and all but now it's more of digital and social media marketing and I think it reaches a wider audience. It is believed that you just have to excite your people and make them see what will make them attracted to you so that by the time you show them what you have for them to market, they are already pleased with you and interested in whatever you are bringing to them. I believe that, maybe not just in Nollywood but across the world, whatever you want to market right now especially in the entertainment industry, you just have to bring some level of excitement to people so that by the time you’re bringing the so-called product, it’s already a done deal, that’s why we’ve chosen to do a lot of content.”

Will Kazim Adeoti ever become a Nollywood actor?

During the interview, Adekaz reacted to questions about becoming an actor and if he was considering it seeing as he had already gained prominence for his promotional videos on social media.

Kazim Adeoti admitted that Mercy Aigbe had suggested he go into acting because he has the talent, but he was not interested in it even though he would not completely write it off.

In his words:

“Even my wife was talking to me sometime ago that ‘oh babe, it’s like you have this talent, you’re talented, it’s going to be very easy for you to be an actor’ and I was like ‘I don’t think it’s something I want to do’, I don’t think so even though I’m not going to say I will never do it because for you to see me making content, technically I’m acting and why do I do that? Because I believe that is what is obtainable right now and whatever you do, you just have to do it well. Whenever you invest heavily in a product, and you realise what you need to do to make your returns is to generate content, even if Mercy Aigbe wasn’t my wife and my partner calls on me and says ‘Mr Adeoti, you may need to do this so that we can appease our audience, I think I will be ready to do it because as a marketer, as a business oriented person, you should be able to make yourself available to contribute in a legitimate way that your market is going to be well sold.”

How Mercy Aigbe played a role in making Adekaz a content creator

Adekaz said he believes his second wife, Mercy Aigbe, has a hand in him being an entertainer because he is already a movie producer and distributor while she is an actress and producer. He said that they have a lot in common and it makes it easier for them to work together.

“I’m a movie producer, a movie executive producer, movie distributor and Mercy is also a producer and actress. We have a whole lot in common when it comes to our profession and business so it makes it better and sweeter to work together because we are in the same line of business, so I believe it helps”, he said.

How Adekaz has managed controversy surrounding relations with his first wife and marriage with Mercy Aigbe

Kazim Adeoti explained that being a public figure makes it hard to control people’s opinions, so he prefers to stay focused on other things.

“When you find yourself in a public domain, you can’t really control a lot of opinions or narratives so the best thing is to be focused and the end justifies the means”, he said.

The Yoruba industry lacks funding - Kazim Adeoti

Kazim Adeoti shared his thoughts on why the Yoruba film industry was still lacking in some aspects. According to him Yoruba filmmakers have what it takes to shoot good movies because of their great storylines and fantastic actors. However, he said more collaboration and funding is needed to take things to greater heights.

In his words:

“I think we need more collaboration because we have what it takes to shoot good movies. When it comes to storyline, originality, telling our real stories, fantastic actors, we have them. In most cases, what we lack is the funding which limits our ability to bring those stories into reality because in most cases we know this is how it should be done but we are limited when we don’t have adequate funding.”

Thoughts on Yoruba filmmakers doing more epic movies in recent times

It is no longer news that more Yoruba filmmakers have delved into making epic movies in recent times after seeing the success of their colleagues who took that path. Adekaz shared his thoughts on this development by disagreeing that more Yoruba filmmakers are doing epic movies and taking them to cinemas.

According to him, the majority of them are still doing regular movies. He said:

“If you look at most of the Yoruba genre producers, it’s not as if it’s the epic films they are doing, Mercy Aigbe is from the Yoruba genre, she hasn’t done epic and she has been going to the cinemas, Toyin Abraham just did an epic movie and it hasn’t gone to the cinemas yet, Funke Akindele has not done epic and taken to the cinema, Wunmi Toriola just did Queen Latifa, so when you look at the larger percentage of the movies they are churning out, it’s more of the contemporary and the English but we have some of our producers that are doing epic and they are doing fantastically well and it’s something I really encourage and I say kudos to them.”