The Learner

No film was released this Eid for obvious reasons, of course! Last year’s Eid saw the release of the Hausa film KARKI MANTA DA NI . This is my short review of the film.   The movie, Kar Ki Manta Da Ni  is an intense love story presented in the style of the Indian romantic drama films. This is not a surprise, looking at the career of the film’s director, Ali Nuhu, who is well known for making Indianized Hausa films. Like in one of the ‘whiz kid’ director’s previous flicks, particularly Ni Da Ke Mun Dace , the male lead of this film is a musician who sings, plays instruments and always carries a guitar on his back. This is a typical romantic hero portrayal in Indian cinema.   The storyline focuses on Nasir (Shamsu Dan’iya) and his love, Fatima (Maryam Booth). They are genuinely in love with each other, but as Nasir doesn’t have enough to get married, he loses her to a wealthy scion Isma’il (Umar M. Sharif). Consequently, Nasir resorts to drugs, turning his highly pr...

Muhsin Ibrahim muhsin200@gmail.com Kannywood film industry faces an existential threat from many fronts. A leading Hausa film scholar, Prof. Abdullah Uba Adamu declared last year that “ by 2016, the Hausa film industry had literally crashed ” and, therefore, major actors in the production, marketing and distributing its films had pulled out and ventured into other more propitious businesses. His declaration was true. We are already in the middle of the year 2018. As an independent, casual promoter and reviewer of their films, however, I have yet to watch any serious movie  worth reviewing. Most of the few, released films so far are poor in many respects, while the good ones are still held for fear of the market. I don’t blame them for this. Love or hate them, the resilience of Kannywood filmmakers is what makes them survive this far, though, as mentioned above, many have already capitulated and closed shop. The reasons for this turn of the event are somewhat apparent. T...