Abuja The – Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) says it is partnering the Nigerian movie industry to enhance the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capacity of stakeholders in movie production.

The Director, Public Affairs of the commission, Mr Tony Ojobo, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday that the telecom regulator had become an active enthusiast of Nollywood.

According to him, the aim is to help project the image of the country positively.

“Our attraction to Nollywood became more intense when we realised that we can leverage on ICT opportunity to promote and project the industry to greater digital heights, for the benefit of the practitioners and socioeconomic progress of our nation.

“Our relationship with Nollywood was actually consummated through a well-articulated partnership with our ICT training institution,” the director said.

He said the partnership had led to several workshops experimentation on movie production.

Ojobo told NAN that the collaboration had also led to the production of a movie titled “Love on the Run’’.

He said the commission was working towards providing an ICT application for production, storage and distribution of movies.

“Just recently some professionals from Georgia University Technology was in Lagos to deliver training on master classics, class session on film business and production techniques in furtherance of this important partnership.

“Plans are on the way to establish a centre of excellence for multimedia for the movie industry.

“We recognise that there is limited application of ICT technologies in our movie industry today, especially in production and storing materials,” he said.

He said the centre would be fully equipped with editing kit and more film production facilities for digital video, animation for entertainment, advertising, multimedia cartography and multimedia communications, among others.

Ojobo noted that the broad band network initiated by the commission would help in the distribution of movies, content marking and protection of intellectual property in the industry.

He expressed optimism that the collaboration would provide multi-media training materials, and attract appreciable application of ICT facilities in film production.

“Our confidence in supporting and partnering Nollywood is based on the fact that it has a greater and more rewarding digital future,’’ he said.

– NAN