Nollywood actress and filmmaker, Funke Akindele, appeared to take a veiled swipe at fellow filmmaker, Kunle Afolayan, following recent comments on the sustainability of current movie marketing strategies in the industry.
Akindele is currently Nollywood’s highest-grossing filmmaker with her movie ‘Behind The Scenes, released in 2025, grossing N2,407,000,000. She is well known for her energetic promotional style, often involving dance videos and comedy skits used to market her films across social media platforms.
Akindele’s comments come amid remarks by filmmaker Kunle Afolayan, who recently questioned the pressure on filmmakers to constantly create promotional content, particularly dance-driven marketing, to sell their films.
Speaking earlier, Afolayan described such promotional demands as exhausting, recalling his experience in the industry.
In 2006, I did all the runs, and it was exhausting. I want to make a film if you can guarantee I don’t have to dance to sell that film.
“We need to come up with other strategies. How do we sell without exhausting ourselves?
“I don’t know how the likes of Funke Akindele and others are doing it — creating skits every day, changing costumes all the time. I can’t do it,” he said.
He also raised concerns about the financial returns of cinema successes, arguing that high visibility does not always translate into commensurate earnings for filmmakers.
