THE BUEA CELEBRITY CORNER - A MISUNDERSTOOD CONCEPT

                               

The members of the English entertainment industry in Cameroon converged at the premises of the Hotel Residence Carlos for the purpose of creating a “Celebrity Corner” to facilitate the process involving the management and maintenance of stars in the industry. As I earlier wrote on the previous article, my wish was that this project would not only highlight the efforts of celebs, but try to make ALL entertainers feel appreciated and provide a center for relaxation. As expected… I was humbly disappointed.

First of all, what is a celebrity corner? To the best of my knowledge, it is a zone for relaxation for celebs in the entertainment industry, NOT A ZONE FOR FILM MAKERS TO AIR OUT THEIR DIFFERENCES. And that is what happened all night. The planning meeting which was to start at 4pm commenced at 7pm. The chairperson was Mr. Agbor Gilbert, spoke brilliantly…about the wrong things. He amazed me with his deep knowledge about film making and producing, but that was not the idea of the creation of the celeb corner.

Before the show started, the arena was so boring that Ndisang Reneta of Afroshic Clothing opted for artists around to lighten up the place. What happened? She was snubbed. Just one guy, a comedian succeeded in making the place lively. Most of them were feeling big. That´s the spirit. Keep up. Now to the meeting proper.

I thought the planning meeting was called so that we can organize the area to suit the relaxation criteria of celebs in the industry. That was not to be the case. The hall, which comprised of 90% filmmakers, 5% musicians, 3% comedians and 1% designers was transformed into another version of the Cameroon Film Industry meeting (C.F.I). 

All what was talked about was on movie making, how actors have been neglected, how producers function, and the general conduct of filmmakers in the industry. Fingers were pointed, slangs were thrown, faces were dark and long, and I kept wondering if I was in the right place. Little, I mean LITTLE was said about comedians, musicians and designers. I was in a movie conference.

We claim we want to be united as entertainers, but the sitting positions told a different story. We were greeted by our friends, we sat down close to our friends, and gossiped about our enemies. That´s the spirit! You could find cliques of artists huddled together, too big to mingle, or mingling when it was time to intimidate the younger celebs. Trust me, all non-movie makers really felt out of place.

In the end, all what I managed to gather form the meeting was that we simply lost focus of the reason for the creation of the celeb corner, and simply took the opportunity to vent our anger and frustration. I am not against film makers. I love movies; the good ones, though, but a little more diversification would have been better. What would have been best was if we actually talked on how to manage the relaxation spot to benefit all, rather than turn it into a movie association meeting.