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It’s a season of uncommon joy and celebration for the family of David Confidence Ezenwa popularly known as Confidence. Confidence who is now a proud father of a bouncing baby boy got married to his pretty wife in November 2014. He is currently the music director of The Radiant Church Int’l Headquarters in Lagos.
Handsome, cute, romantic, ‘killing’, are not enough adjectives to describe this super-creative dude who has kept African movie lovers on the edge. Vicker is popularly known for his smooth talking style, his pussy cat-like eyes and red, luscious lips which gets most ladies freezing. No wonder he often plays the role of a lover-boy.
Vicker was born to a Ghanaian Liberian mother and a Dutch father. His father died when he was six years old. Vicker attended Mfantsipim School, along with fellow actor Majid Michel. Mfantsipim School is the alma mater of Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.
Vicker started out in the entertainment world in radio as a presenter at Groove 106.3 fm (1999 – 2000) & Vibe 91.9fm (2001 – 2004) and as a television personality for TV3 (1997 – 1999) & Metro TV (2000 – 2004). Van Vicker appeared in the Ghanaian television series, Suncity, which depicted university life. He played the character of LeRoy King, Jr., a fine arts student born in the U.S. who arrives at Suncity to complete his education. The series ran for a total of 10 episodes.
Soon, Vicker was cast in his first film Divine Love as a supporting character. This film coincidentally was also the debut roles for fellow actors Jackie Aygemang and Majid Michel who were cast in the female and male lead respectively.
Vicker is usually cast as the male romantic lead, often alongside actresses Jackie Aygemang and Nadia Buari. He is often compared to fellow Ghanaian actor Majid Michel and Nigerian Ramsey Nouah.
Van Vicker is one of the renowned African actors Worldwide. He has directed, starred and produced 5 films under his sky + Orange Productions since 2008. 2012 has being his brightest year for his production house earning him best actor and director for his smash comedy ‘Joni waka’.
Vicker is married with 4 children. He is the CEO of “Sky + Orange Productions”, a film production house. Van Vicker Training facility is an entrepreneurship outfit where students are trained in the field of acting by professionals. The Van Vicker Foundation is an outreach program for the youth.
THE PAST
History has it that the Nigerian Movie Industry aka Nollywood officially started with Ken Neube’s Living in Bondage. Although there has been a little controversy about this fact, it has over the years become acceptable. As we all know, the success of that movie inspired many other Nigerian movies that made headway in the mid 90s which kicked off a new era of Nigerian Home Videos.
In the past, Nigerians were engrossed with Indian Movies, American Movies and Chinese Films, not only because they were so interesting, but because there was no such thing as indigenous movies, apart from a few Soap Operas which were only aired on some local TV Stations. But with the emergence of Nollywood, its movies completely won its way into the hearts of the people within a very short period, from a stock of mere tapes and cassettes on shelves to a huge industry.
Although at first, the acting was quite unprofessional and its picture quality substandard, the sheer desire by the pioneers to tell Nigerian stories and showcase her cultures, a feat that the Nigerian people never had a feel of, quickly gained its popularity and acceptance across the nation like wild fire, making celebrities out of actors and actresses, giving birth to other sectors in the industry like Cinematography, Cosmetology, Soundtrack Production and its Market (Alaba Intl Market, Online Streaming Videos etc.), and then exporting Nigeria’s cultures across the world.
THE PRESENT
The Nigerian movie industry has evolved despite various challenges and set back. Within two decades, it has over-shadowed other movie industries in Africa to become the second largest movie industry in the world, generating over $100m annually and gainfully engaging thousands of youths economically. The production quality of its movie has tremendously improved from what we had in the 90s. Indigenous actors and actresses are now been recognized and awarded by international bodies. Other sectors like production, directing, script writing and shooting are now been handled by proven professionals. We have seen Nollywood movies span a whopping sum of N57m (Ije) in sales. Indigenous movies has become a house hold name in the whole of Africa. But in spite of all these accolade, there are still a lot of flaws and shortcomings, which insiders blame on inadequate structure and funding.
Nollywood has been heated with a lot of criticism from its conception. The industry is supposed to be the mirror of our society but its high display of rituals, witchcraft, crimes and most recently, soft pornography portrays Nigeria in a wrong manner and this makes us all wonder if that is really what we are all about.
The industry has grown from a hand full of favourite characters that virtually features in all the movies to a flock of talented and refined characters that can unarguably stand shoulder high with their foreign counterparts. The story lines and actions have relatively metamorphosed as most producers and directors have become more sophisticated overtime.
THE FUTURE
Although Nollywood has performed fairly well over these years, it still has a long way to go. The industry need lots of passionate and talented actors and actresses to completely fizzle out the half baked ones and extremely intelligent and creative directors and producers that will take their time to produce movies that would spur the viewers round intellectually and otherwise.
Nollywood also needs funding and a proper distribution network to cub Piracy which is its greatest challenge.
The future of Nollywood is definitely very bright, if within the last two decades it has been able to find its way to the big screen in major cities across the globe and imparting greatly on the economy of the nation, then the best is yet to come. With the funding issues gradually becoming resolved and the emergence of an amazing set of fantastic producers and directors like Kunle Afolayan (Phone Swap), Obi Emelonye (Mirror Boy), Jet Amata (Amazing Grace) and Chienze Anyaene (Ije) and a fine collaboration of a list of Nollywood stars and Hollywood stars in Movies, then the best is truly yet to come.
nwekesamuelchinonso 