Nigerian Times

The 13th Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) opened this Thursday amidst the euphoria of the 81st birthday of our literary icon Chinua Achebe and the good news of British Nigerian playwright Janice Okoh's clinching the £16,000 Bruntwood Prize for Play-writing with her play Three Birds . It is the competition's largest single award to date. She is also popularly known for her play Egusi Soup that was premiered at the 2009 Hotbed Festival and taken on tour by Menagerie. Okoh was also a runner-up for the 2011 Verity Bargate Award for The Real House . The noble grand old man of Nigerian Literature, Prof. Chinua Achebe celebrated his 81st birthday on November 16. . Bruntwood Prize winner Janice Okoh receiving her prize from Maxine Peake . LABAF which is the biggest book fair and art event in West Africa started in the morning with the second publishers forum at the Goethe Institut on the 4th floor of the City Hall on the Lagos Island. The forum focused on "THE BOOK IN THE AGE ...

The most famous Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji Taking Nollywood to the next level Recently stakeholders in the Nigerian film industry met at the last quarterly stampede of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) to discuss “The New Trend in Nollywood”. The event was held on Sunday May 22, 2011, at the Freedom Park on Broad Street, Lagos. The forum was convened by CORA and Mr. Femi Odugbemi’s iRepresent International Documentary Film Festival (iREP). It was well coordinated and well attended by most of the notable personalities in Nollywood and related fields. Celebrated actors Richard Mofe-Damijo, Joke Silva-Jacobs, Francis Onwochei and other Nollywood stars sat quietly without any sort of fanfare or glamour in the audience. The invited filmmakers identified as leaders of the new trend had an interactive session on their movies. Mahmood Ali-Balogun discussed his matrimonial drama “Tango With Me”, Kunle Afolayan spoke on his horror thriller “The Figurine 'araromire'”, Stephani...