Nollywood: The New Age Film Industry of the Shanty

Nollywood film set. Source.

Hollywood has long been regarded as the most affluent and successful film-industry in the world, nevertheless by 2009 a newly thriving film industry ascended from the slums of Nigeria to surpass Hollywood as the world’s second largest movie industry by volume, right behind India’s Bollywood (Bright 2015). Nigeria’s Nollywood may be regarded as groundbreaking, the relatively new industry producing approximately two thousand films per year, a $3.3 billion sector, with 1844 movies produced in 2013 alone. (Bright 2015)

Nollywood originated in the heart of Nigeria when in 1992, electronics salesman Kenneth Nnebue shot a straight-to-video movie in one month, on a budget of just $12,000. Living in Bondage sold more than one million copies, predominantly by street vendors (The New York Times 2016). Nollywood grew rapidly from it’s initial launch despite the fact that the films never make it to the cinema, the industry prospered as it expelled up to thirty films onto the streets daily. Nigerian film producer and financer Yewande Sadiku notes that “Nollywood’s popularity across Africa and the diaspora certainly demonstrates the capacity of the films to travel.” Consequently pirating is a dire problem as it takes pirates a mere two weeks to copy a film and distribute it across Africa. (The New York Times 2016)

Pictured above; A scene being filmed on a Nollywood film set.Source.

Critics have also noted that Nollywood is severely lacking in production value and African actors have yet to branch out globally (Bright 2015). Nigerian Producer Kunle Afolayan stated that “key players in the global movie industry still have little idea what Nollywood is about,” (Bright 2015) both in a cinematic and cultural sense. Nigeria is teetering in a state of political and economic disorder, thus corruption, the economy and bureaucracy feature heavily in Nollywood films during height of the countries tumultuous state. Furthermore, the Nollywood genre is anti-globalisation in terms of position, lacking the luxurious cinematic experience of Hollywood, for many lower and middle class citizens providing an escape from the torments of reality. 

Nollywood can undoubtedly be viewed as revolutionary in terms of production style, value and cultural poignancy. However, it is Nollywood’s “acute notation of locality that gives it an unprecedented acceptability as the local cinematic expression in Nigeria and indeed in Africa.” (Okome 2007), that makes it truly unique. 

 

Cat, D. 

 

 

References 

 

Abuja Accra & Lagos 2010, ‘Movies are uniting a disparate continent, and dividing it too,’ The Economist, available from: http://www.economist.com/node/17723124.%5BAugust 20 2016]. 

Bright J 2015, edt, Meet ‘Nollywood’: The Second Largest Film Industry in the World. available from: http://fortune.com/2015/06/24/nollywood-movie-industry/. [August 9 2016].

McClintock P 2015, The Hollywood Reporter, available from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-star-wars-crosses-851359

Okome O 2007, ‘Nollywood: spectatorship, audience and the sites of consumption,’ Postcolonial text, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 1-21. 

Onishi, N 2010,’How the Times named Nollywood’, Times Insider, available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/insider/how-the-times-named-nollywood.html?_r=0. [August 9 2016].