CEO spots opportunity in bridging Nollywood and Bollywood

Interview with Hamisha Daryani Ahuja
FOUNDER AND CEO, FOREVER 7 ENTERTAINMENT

Lives in: Lagos, Nigeria

Hamisha Daryani Ahuja, the chief producer and director of the Netflix hit ‘Namaste Wahala’, sat down for an interview with Ibrahim Sagna, chairman of Silverbacks Holdings, which can also be an investor in her firm. Of their dialog, the businesswoman-turned-filmmaker delved into her earlier hospitality enterprise, her foray into the movie business, and the prospects for crafting leisure content material that resonates with each Nigerian and Indian audiences. Watch the total interview above.

Nollywood and Bollywood are the world’s two largest movie industries by manufacturing quantity. Indian-Nigerian Hamisha Daryani Ahuja, CEO of Nigeria-based Ceaselessly 7 Leisure, sees potential in fusing the 2.

Her debut movie, ‘Namaste Wahala’, was launched on Netflix in 2021 and trended within the prime ten for over a month in Nigeria. It narrates the story of an Indian-born funding banker in Lagos and a Nigerian lawyer whose budding romance faces hurdles on account of cultural opposition from their households. “Lots of people had been very excited to see a Nigerian and an Indian collectively – it isn’t a really regular or widespread factor you see,” says Hamisha, who has spent most of her life in an Indian family in Nigeria.

She factors out that Bollywood movies had been already widespread in Nigeria. “I actually wished to do an Indian-Nigerian film, as a result of … Nigeria has grown up on Indian content material. All my Nigerian mates know Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan – Bollywood is such a big effect, how come nobody’s tried to merge the 2 collectively?”

“What I attempted to do with ‘Namaste Wahala’ is carry some genuine Nigerian tradition in addition to genuine Indian tradition and put it collectively. So you will have your [Nigerian] Pidgin, you will have the mom in regulation talking Hindi. However all people is talking English and it’s all type of combined collectively,” Hamisha explains.

She provides that the film was additionally widespread amongst Indians residing in Nigeria. “That’s my greatest fan membership in the meanwhile. I stumble upon individuals on a regular basis. They’re like, ‘When’s the following one popping out?’ Since you might relate a lot as an expat residing in Lagos.”

Hamisha’s subsequent undertaking, a mini-series referred to as ‘Postcards’, can also be a Nollywood-Bollywood collaboration. The manufacturing, primarily filmed in Mumbai with segments in Lagos, enlisted a few of Nollywood’s main actors, who had been taken to Mumbai for the shoot. The sequence follows the tales of a number of characters whose lives intersect in a sequence of life altering occasions.

Earlier ventures

Since she was a baby, Hamisha has aspired to be concerned within the film business. But, she opted to initially take the enterprise path. She pursued commerce in her undergraduate research and later accomplished a postgraduate diploma in hospitality.

This led her to ascertain Bistro 7, a restaurant chain in Lagos, in 2012. After managing it for about seven years, she offered the enterprise to Chocolate Metropolis Group, a Nigerian firm, which was then beneath the management of music celebrity M.I.

As well as, she runs a talking and training enterprise. She carried out workshops referred to as The Pursuit of Happiness from her Bistro 7 restaurant. On this realm, she has additionally collaborated with distinguished organisations and even coached the Massive Brother Naija housemates on stay tv.

Watch the total interview on the prime of this text.

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