By Yetunde Adeyeri
Nollywood award-winning filmmaker Kunle Afolayan is celebrating his 45th birthday today. The father of four, actor, director and producer is a pacesetter who has over the years created exceptional movies.
Seven Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Him
1) He majored in economics and started out working in a bank while doing some casual acting, before deciding to move into full-time filmmaking and taking a course at the New York Film Academy.
2) Since 2005 he has been active in the Nigerian film industry. He has made several extremely popular titles including The Figurine: Araromire which was in the Yoruba and English languages and Phone Swap which featured Wale Ojo, Joke Silva, Nse Ikpe Etim, and the legendary Chika Okpala. The Figurine won five major awards in the African Film Academy and experienced tremendous success in the Nigerian movie theaters.
3) Afolayan is the CEO of Golden Effects Pictures, a Nigerian film, and production company incorporated in 2005. The company’s feature films include Irapada, The Figurine, Phone Swap, October 1, and The CEO.
4) Kunle Afolayan appeared at the Subversive Film Festival in 2011 where he represented Nigerian film industry, said, in 2009, to be the world’s second-largest, with his colleague Zeb Ejiro.
5) Five of his movies have just been acquired by Streaming Network, Netflix.
6) He has a very unusual car – Thunderbird Ford 1965. The model is the fourth generation of the Ford Thunderbird which is a large personal luxury car produced by Ford. The V8 engine needed nearly 11 seconds to push the heavy T-bird to 96 km/h.
7) He identifies as a Free-thinker.
