So we can’t watch ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’

NTV's Larry Madowo speaks to Kenya Film Commission Board Corporate Communication Manager Evelyn Mbuni on Kenya's restrictions to Martin Scorsese's movie Wolf of Wall Street.

 

In Summary

• Africa could easily be the biggest consumer market of movies in the world in the future, thanks to the Internet and pirates – plus the free marketing that comes from the publicity that banning

By Charles Onyango Obbo
 

 

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A few days ago the Kenya Film Classification Board joined the growing list of moral guardians in the world who have censored or heavily edited Martin Scorsese’s film The Wolf of Wall Street.

The F words (there are 569 of them) and graphic scenes were considered too many and too much, and likely to corrupt the souls of the good people of the Republic of Kenya.

What happened next was predictable. There was a social media buzz, and many curious folks rushed to find bootleg copies. The pirates went into overdrive, churning out copies to meet the surge of demand.

A journalist who tracks the underworld revealed that a pirate who dashed to make 25 copies, sold 20 within minutes – a record.

The banning of The Wolf of Wall Street therefore was the perfect New Year gift for Nairobi’s pirates.

Its intentions notwithstanding, it demonstrated how East African classification and film censor boards have been left behind by the times. Most East Africans don’t watch movies in theatres in malls. They do pirated DVDs and both legal and illegal downloads from the web.

Peak movie ticket prices in Nairobi, for example, are Ksh660 ($7). Plus popcorn and a drink, the average trip to watch a movie will set you back Ksh1,000 ($11). A pirate movie DVD is Ksh50 (about 50 US Cents). For the cost of one movie outing at the theatre, you get 20 in the bootleg market. There is simply no competition there.

The pirate DVD distribution network is elaborate and complex, and unlike the stuff in the theatre, the Police have a vested interest in it. Just like hawkers and prostitutes pay East African Police and City Council officers protection money, the DVD pirates do the same.

It is a lucrative income stream for the enforcers that didn’t exist before. For this reason, it is all but impossible to effectively ban films these days, especially in Africa where the pirates have better technology and are more tech savvy than the Police and censors.

Secondly, the pirates have changed the way most East Africans watch films, and society itself. They are part of the spider web that stretches to those papyrus-enclosed “movie theatres” that you find in even the smallest East African towns.

There are probably over 2,000 of them in the region. A new economy and job market has emerged.

Though the filmmakers are losing money to pirates, it is only in the short-term. Most immediately, local makers of third rate local films are exploiting these network to distribute their material.

Looking forward though, unlike in the past, nearly every school-going child will have watched a couple of movies, most of them pirated. They will no longer have to wait to go to secondary school in town before watching an old Bruce Lee film in a backstreet theatre.

They are growing up hooked to it like some fizzy drink. And when they have their own money, they will go out and get their movie fix.

Africa could easily be the biggest consumer market of movies in the world in the future, thanks to the Internet and pirates – plus the free marketing that comes from the publicity that banning of movies generates.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive editor for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail: cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com. Twitter: @cobbo3