Olufunke Ayotunde Akindele (Funke Akindele) was born in 1977, and to date has acted in Yoruba and English movies totalling 50. Her biggest project in the past one year has to be her multi millioin aira epic movie, Apaadi (Seal), in which she was lead actress and Producer, working with a cast of over 200. She was also lead actress in what is perhaps the most popular Nigerian movie in 2008, Jenifa.
She was won major awards in the past one year including Afro hollywood awards UK (Best Supporting Actress 2007), City People's Award for Excellence (Best Actress of the Year 2008), Dynamix Youth Awards (Movie act of the year 2008), and the Yoruba community in Canada Best Actress of the yYar 2008. Her two hit movies, Apaadi and Jenifa were also premiered in theatres in the UK and Canada.
If you dont ‘get’ the words above then you haven’t been touched by the ‘Jenifa’ phenomenon. ‘Jenifa’ is the brainchild of actress, Funke Akindele. Funke has been a successful actress for over a decade. She got her big break on the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) sponsored youth-oriented TV show, ‘I Need To Know’. Since then she has completed her law degree at the University of Lagos and now she is pursuing her movie career in full throttle.Acting in English movies and then producing, writing and starring in Yoruba movie productions.Her new movie ‘Jenifa’ is making major waves and is selling out fast! ‘Jenifa’ tells the all too familiar story of a young ‘village girl’ who moves to the city to enrol in university. Suliat (Funke Akindele) is a local champion in her humble hometown, Ayetoro. She is the most popular babe of them all and highly influential amongst her peers. She gains admission to university in Lagos and moves there with great expectations. At university, she is ridiculed for her style (or lack-there-of), her accent and manner of speaking then she meets a group of girls, things begin to change and Suliat is transformed to JENIFA….
The movie is actually pretty predictable but the humour, costumes and acting performances carry it along nicely. Its so commendable that Funke also wrote the script and produced the movie. The movie also stars Ronke Odusanya, Iyabo Ojo, Ireti Osayemi, Odunade Adekola, Eniola Badmus and Tola Oladokun.This is definitely the movie of the moment! You can hardly go anywhere without hearing a conversation about it or some quips from the movie like Suliat/Jenifa’s buzz words ‘ooouushhh’ ‘Bigz Girlz’ etc…The movie is so popular that it has inspired a song by Amplifyd Ft ID Cabasa.
If there is one segment of Nollywood that deserves praise for sustaining the industry it should be the Idumota- and Aba-based marketers that have been pumping money into the movie industry. So, it was a kind of shock when last Monday, some artistes (names withheld), descended on the marketers for ruining Nollywood especially the Yoruba genre.
“The fact that marketers don’t want to know their limits in Nollywood is causing lots of problem. Can you believe that marketers of Yoruba movies are now claiming to be producers, executive producers, writers and so on?” an aggrieved director told us. “A case in point was the blockbuster movie, Jennifer. It is general belief that Funke Akindele wrote the story but Alhaji Olatunji Balogun (Olasco), the marketer of the movie is claiming to have written the story because he bought the script and copyright from Funke.” A very popular actor said in an interview recently that he gets better paid in English genre unlike the Yoruba where producers and marketers offer him N30 000. “How do you expect me to collect N30 000 for almost a week job and live like beggar stars outside?” he asked.
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