Veteran Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has revealed that her entry into the world of YouTube filmmaking was largely influenced by the persistent encouragement of her colleague, Ruth Kadiri.
Speaking on the Nollywood on Radio podcast, the award-winning actress recalled how Kadiri’s persuasion during a 2023 vacation inspired her to embrace the digital shift reshaping Nollywood’s storytelling and distribution landscape.
“I came on vacation in 2023, and I had a meeting with Ruth, and she called me. She was like, ‘Mama, do you know what is going on? Well, there is a whole revolution with YouTube.’ She showed me numbers and everything,” Omotola recounted.
“She said, ‘You can do what you want to do on YouTube, but I think you should still get in on this phenomenon. I think you would do very well in it. Anyway, she kept pressuring me. Ruth does not rest.’”
The actress, fondly called Omosexy by fans, said Kadiri’s persistence eventually pushed her to experiment with the platform.
“That girl gave me no peace of mind. And so I called my producer. I said, let us do a production on this thing. I am just going to try. But if I don’t make it, nobody will see it,” she said.
“And so that is how we shot the first project. And then, everything that would come out was keynotes. We finished shooting in four days, and we had the fifth day to just do cleanups. I surprised myself, actually. And I was very thankful to her for giving me the courage to even try.”
The success of her first YouTube production, Omotola revealed, became the catalyst for her next major project, Mother’s Love — a feature film that went on to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
“Mother’s Love came as a story that I shot because I was under pressure, to be honest. I am not even going to lie; I have been very truthful about the journey to Mother’s Love,” she said.
“I just talked to my producer and said, ‘What if we did a feature film? And that was it. And immediately, back-to-back, we actually started planning for Mother’s Love. I just looked for it because I have stories.”
The actress said the film was shot in under two weeks but took longer to release due to her self-doubt.
“That is why it took so long for it to come out. I was just self-conscious of myself, you know. And, you know, like, it is so people are laughing at me. Like, it is not good enough. Like, I do not have a choice,” she added.
