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These Nigerians Founded the Largest Cinema Chain in West Africa

Kene Okwuosa and Moses Babatope have been consistently offering world-class movie-going experiences throughout Africa for the past ten years.

Before meeting at the Odeon Surrey Quays movie in London years ago, the two could never have imagined that they would create a deep friendship that would soon give birth to the largest movie platform in West Africa.

Okwuosa was the HR Manager in charge of recruiting the new batch of staff intended to join Odeon Cinema in October 2002, while Babatope, a Middlesex University student, was actively looking for a part-time job.

“We had two or three stages in the recruitment process where you speak to a full auditorium and play out an emergency situation. If you do well, then you go to the interview and after your interview, you were told whether you were successful or not,” said Babatope.

“I didn’t have a good session when it came to the scenario part of the interview, so I was going to walk myself out when a gentleman called me and said I should do better next time and I am okay to proceed to the next phase. That gentleman was Kene.”

That unexpected meeting kickstarted the bond that culminated in Filmhouse Cinemas, Nigeria, and grew stronger when the pals went on to marry two sisters from the same family.

“The vision started in Nigeria. When we came, we joined a new cinema at the time called Genesis, which didn’t go as planned. Our vision was not aligned and we ended up parting ways,” Owkuosa Explained. “But we knew we had to build this thing one way or the other. We were so passionate about cinema and so passionate about film that not figuring it out was not an option. It was an opportunity to step back and say we can do this on our own.”

Today, Filmhouse Cinemas have over 54 cinema screens across Nigeria, Ghana, and some other West African nations; remaining the largest cinema chain in West Africa and the third largest in Africa.

“We identified an under-reached market in Nigeria and an opportunity in people’s craving for entertainment, and so, we sought to meet these demands with a quality offering. The era of modern cinemas had just returned to the country and there were very few players – less than five cinemas serving an entire country with a population of over 150 million people at the time. So, we saw an opportunity and went for it.”

Filmhouse Cinemas offers film exhibitions with a style that incorporates multifarious features, including state-of-the-art cinema technologies and luxurious dine-in cinema services managed by a team of professionals.

Kene Okwuosa, Group Deputy CEO, and Moses Babatope, Group Deputy CEO, never anticipated their entrepreneurial path would unfold as it has. They began by dabbling in the film industry, giving Nigerian filmmakers the opportunity to premiere Nollywood films in the United Kingdom.

“That was a game-changer. We got real insights about people’s experiences and how they felt during the cinema experience. In all of that, we never thought to ourselves that we can find capital and start our own,” said Babatope. “Our scenario was, ‘let’s go show our experience and see what happens,” he added.

The brief success recorded in the UK emboldened the duo to pursue their vision. However, a paucity of funds can bring a dream to a halt.

“We understood that we did not have the last names that would open doors in Nigeria for us to get investment, but we were convinced that if we could just get started and figure it out, we would learn and figure it out on the way,” said. Okwuosa.

“At this time, we just came from London and we assumed we would fill out a form and wait for the call. We did that and no one called us back. We got as far as being invited to pitch properly for a loan of one million dollars. They were impressed. We had no security or collateral but they were taken by the passion and management expertise we had to set up cinemas,” he added.

Despite not having the funds to launch the firm, the buddies never gave up on their ambition. They travelled around, looking for investors who believed in their objective and vision. Fortunately for them, in 2011, His Excellency, Goodluck Ebere Jonathan, the then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, established a fund for the creative industry through the Bank of Industry in Nigeria (BOI).

Okwuosa and Babatope were the first to benefit from the investment, which enabled them to open Filmhouse Cinemas, a three-seat cinema in Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria, in December 2012.

However, the company’s business was severely harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a negative influence on the entertainment industry; stakeholders estimated that the pandemic cost the industry $1,286,173.60.

When the lockdown ended, however, fortune smiled on them in the form of multimillion-dollar blockbuster releases from Nollywood and the highest-grossing film at the time, Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The company has survives because to worldwide streaming platforms yearning for great Nollywood films.

“Back then everything was going to streaming so the catalogue we had built over the years, we were able to monetize that and that was able to help sustain things while the cinema revenue took a hit. As the largest supplier of content to our streaming partners, Netflix and Amazon, everyone wanted content so we were able to boost supply and through that, we also strengthened our studio relationships as well,” said Okwuosa.

Today, Filmhouse Cinemas has expanded its business by establishing FilmOne – an independent entertainment company focused on producing and distributing filmed content globally.

“Currently, we are the exclusive theatrical licensees to The Walt Disney Company, Warner Brothers Discovery, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Empire Entertainment in Anglophone West Africa. We also maintain strategic alliances and relationships, enabling us to distribute a wide range of local and international mainstream, commercial and/or niche content worldwide.”

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