Jens-Petter Kjemprud, the Ambassador of Norway to Nigeria, on Thursday expressed that country’s willingness to partner with Nigeria’s creative industry, Nollywood.
Kjemprud who spoke on the sideline of the screening of the movie,“Lost Café’’ in Abuja, said the movie is a collaboration between Nigeria and the Norwegian Embassy.
He described the collaboration as a huge development that would strengthen the cultural relationship between the two countries.
“Diplomacy is all about cross cultural commutation, relationship and about understanding each other; this gives us the opportunity to focus on such challenges citizens face in the visiting countries.
“More importantly, the ways to solve these challenges would be resolve, and the focus of the relationship between the two countries will be appreciated.
Speaking also, Regina Udalor, the Producer of the Lost Café said that, the aim of the movie was to change the negative perception of Nigerians around the world.
“I got the idea to make the lost café some years back when I travel to Italy in 2010, and it was my first impression, you go out and the way people react to you.
“ Some think you are a prostitute and some wonder what are you, so I started thinking that this is a very bad impression on Nigerians, not everybody who travel out of Nigeria goes for negative things.
“Obviously, a lot of Nigerians travel for education which nobody talks about or portray, then the idea came to me that I should make a film on that topic.
“As years went by the story changed a bit; so, it became very central now that everybody is talking about migration across the world, not just about Africa but also other continent,’’ she said.
Also, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Senior Special Assistant to the President (SSA), on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, said there was the need to tell positive stories about Nigerians living in Diaspora doing great things.
According to her, there are many stories about Nigerians who travel abroad to seek greener pasture but we only hear the negative ones.
“This is the first of its kind between Norway and Nigeria, and it is telling a realistic and a sincere story of a Nigerian girl living abroad and in spite of the challenges she made a success of her life.
“ I think this is a collaboration that needs to be encouraged and a story that should be told, ‘’she said.
The Lost Café is an uplifting story about a girl’s decision to rise above dark family secrets and culture shock to live her dreams abroad while finding the most unusual answers to her troubling questions.