Producer plays pricing games with film pirates

By Macharia Kamau

Piracy and high price of producing local movies are major hurdles that have plagued the film industry and suppressed growth.

The two are intertwined because would-be buyers of original films are turned away by high prices, with most titles retailing at between Sh800 and Sh1,200. Due to demand for local productions, pirates can sell movies cheaply to the detriment of the industry.

Indeed, piracy has repelled many local filmmakers from the industry as they get minimal returns from their work.

One filmmaker, however, seems to have found a solution that might work against pirates and entice Kenyans to buy locally produced original films.

Among costs, filmmakers say are slowing growth of the industry include licence and location fees, which range between Sh5,000 and Sh10,000.

Movies by Jitu Films, a subsidiary of Vivid Features, are retailing in supermarkets and other retail points at Sh60.

The strategy is to sell huge volumes of low budget films to break even at prices that are affordable to many.

"To recover our production costs and make a margin would require that we sell at least 150,000 copies of every movie," said Mr Nicholas Kang’ethe production manager at the Vivid Features Eastern Africa office.

Jitu has three films in the market running for about 80 minutes on average. Each movie has sold about 10,000 copies in the five months, after they were released.

"We want to play part in creating an industry modeled on Nigeria’s Nollywood. To do so we have to churn out many titles and also create a cinema going and DVD buying culture," said Mr Alex Konstantaras of Jitu films.

　

retail price

The pricing strategy keeps off pirates, who want to copy movies — including printing CD jackets — because they might incur high costs and they would have to sell pirated copies at about Sh100 instead of Sh60.

"At Sh60, pirates know that it is not worth pirating. So far we have not had any cases of piracy for the three movies in stores," said Konstantaras.

He said the company has shot 24 movies and had released only three, with the rest undergoing the post-production processes.

Mob Doc, Zeinabu Rudi Nyumbani and R 2 Security are already in stores and in the coming weeks, Jitu will release another two films — Selfish and Chasing Moses.

　

Film Board

The company had planned to release three films but the third – a horror movie titled Otto the Blood Bath – was banned by the Kenya Film Censorship Board because of bloodletting scenes.

However, Otto the Blood Bath will be screened in Kigali next week during the Rwandan Film Festival.

Mr David Maingi, the chief executive of Kenya Film Commission said the industry might soon get a reprieve, with a planned new film policy and legislation, which is intended to relax some of the costs and requirements.

The current law has only undergone minor adjustments in decades.

Among costs filmmakers say are slowing growth of the industry include licence and location fees which range between Sh5,000 and Sh10,000.

When the movie is ready, it has to be approved by the censorship board, and the charges are Sh100 a minute, thus a 90-minute film will cost Sh9,000 for pre-viewing.

After approval by the board, one has to buy a sticker (that advises the suitable audience for the movie) at Sh20 for every copy. Thus if one intends to sell 10,000 copies, then they have to part with Sh200,000.

There is no duplicating facility in the country for producing original DVD copies, so filmmakers produce copies in South Africa. The movies treated as imports when bringing them back and filmmakers are compelled to pay 25 per cent import duty.

Some filmmakers break the law and sell their productions without approval from the censorship board due to the prohibitive costs.