They said he studied cinematography in Russia and was a businessman prospering from government contracts.
After the war, he studied cinematography, but at the time Soviet films consisted mostly of hagiographic portraits of party leaders.
"So I went and studied cinematography, and that kind of added to my way of looking at things.
"For the generation I came from, image-making was a rare and precious thing to do," says Johnson, who studied cinematography at the French National Film School in the late 1980s.
The directors of these films have always been well looked after by the state; some of them are even sent to Russia to study cinematography.
The magnificent career of Hungarian-born cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond received a small and delightful capstone in 2015 when movie-crazy TV chef and longtime Zsigmond-idolator Anthony Bourdain chose him as his guide to the mysteries and splendours of Budapest, where Zsigmond had studied cinematography at the State Academy of Drama and Film in the early 1950s.
As with previous after-the-fact sensations Rodriguez and Lewis Baloue, Onyeabor's colourful backstory (he once studied cinematography in the Soviet Union, and his business interests now include a semolina factory in his home town of Enugu) is allied to music that delivers a hefty and enduring kick of off-kilter resonance.
Djajakusuma studied cinematography in the United States, first at the University of Washington in Seattle, then at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, from 1956 to 1957.
While Ismail, who remained head of Perfini, went abroad to study cinematography at the School of Theater, Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles, Djajakusuma began taking a larger role in Perfini.
Studying direction, writing and cinematography, Khan was inspired by writer Roald Dahl.
