Joel Ajayi

One of Nigeria’s  biggest, leading travel film festival organizations, the Nollywood Travel Film Festival NTFF,  that is promoting cultural diplomacy  and cultural exchange amongst the countries of the world  is set to hit the City of Athen in Greece for the second edition of the festival from May 7th to May 14 this year.

NTFF is an initiative that seeks to promote films by Nigerians living across the globe to new and existing global audiences with the aim of creating new market places for Nigerian cinema.

Greek Capital City Athen was garnering a reputation as a pleasant tourist destination, “with its rich cultural mix, beautiful sights with over 6,000 finest highland, the one many adjudged to be the highest in the world.

Nollywood Travel Film Festival (NTFF) is a project of the Pan-African Film Development Foundation, a Nigerian non-profit organization established to support and give a platform to hardworking African independent filmmakers to showcase their work on a global scale.

In the world press conference held in Abuja on Monday, the NTFF founder, Mykel Parish, said that NTFF Team has perfected all the needed plans to have the best, impactful second edition of the festival.

According to him, I am excited to share a ground-breaking event for Nigerian Cinema and our plans to host the 2nd edition of the Nollywood Travel Film Festival in Athens, Greece, from 7th to 14th May 2023.

“We are excited to be returning to Athens, Greece after the successful 2022 edition. The vision is to provide a platform for Nollywood films to be screened to people from other races, cultures and backgrounds and we are glad that we have been able to achieve that and much more especially providing the much needed link between Nollywood and other industries.

“Since 2017, Nollywood Travel Film Festival has hosted screenings in Toronto, Atlanta, Hamburg, Oslo, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Lima, London, and Glasgow. The festival’s focus is to screen Nollywood films that would not typically be shown in Diaspora and create new opportunities for the industry. The previous editions of NTFF attracted more than 3,500 filmmakers, fans, distributors, and marketers globally.

“Our next edition will see us establishing the Greece- Nigeria Annual Film week to explore film culture, food culture, tourism, and music.

“The film week will first advance the people-to-people relations between Nigeria and Greece to promote a sustainable audiovisual partnership.

“The Greece Nigeria Film Week will be incorporated into the Nollywood Travel Film Festival.

“We will create a platform for collaboration between Nigerian and Greek producers. Nigerian producers are the most prolific on the African continent with more commissioned projects by Netflix, Amazon, and Disney in the Middle East and the African region.”

While itemizing the programme of events for this year’s edition of festival, Parish revealed that; “NTFF will showcase six movies from Nigeria and two from Greece, depicting the lives of the people of both countries. There will also be a series of short films screened during the opening night.

“Also, Seminars/Workshops Film Colloquium, will focus on discussions/interactions on collaborations in the creative sector between Greece and Nigeria, particularly on how to activate a co-production MoU for both countries. While there will be a City of Athens tour, parties and merriments.”

Speaking on the overall objective of the festival, Founder of NTFF,  Parish, explained that the Collaboration between Greece and Nigeria’s Screen industry will facilitate film and high-end TV Co-production between the two countries. Launch Greece.

“Its also going to bring establishment of a film market that will bring together content providers, stakeholders, and investors from both countries to discuss possibilities of collaboration and investment opportunities throughout the value chain of the film industry.

“As well as to create job opportunities for the youth of both countries through cultural exchange, and inward investment for film and high-end TV production in both countries.

In his remark, the Greece Ambassador to Nigeria Yiannis Plotas applauded the NTFF efforts to connect the two film industries, saying Promotion of Cultural exchanges between Nigerians and Greeks remain a priority for the embassy.

According to him, the Film industry plays a significant role bringing the cultures of different countries together.

“It is within this framework that Greece will host the second Nigeria -Greece Film Festival which will take place in Athens from 7 until 14th of May.

“We are very pleased that the engagements and cooperation between the Greek and Nigerian film industry are deepening, and we look forward to this May edition of the NTFF.

“I would like to praise you for this kind of initiative, and we reassure you that the embassy will always be here to help, to give a boost not only to our country but in general to strengthen our bilateral relations. The essential ingredient for that is the cultural ties between our countries.” He said.

Also speaking was the President of the Directors Guild of Nigeria (DGN) Dr. Victor Okhai expressed that the travel film festival initiative has demonstrated a great sense of diplomacy between the two Countries.

“This is the best time and we are happy it’s happening in our time. Greece is the center of culture that is why we key-in into the festival and see how we can make it stronger and better.”

However, the Greece Nigeria Film Awards Night: Awards will be recognized in the following categories; Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Short Film, Best Online content creator and Best Cinematography.

Others awards are best editor, best Picture, best director and best producer.

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