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Nollywood and video production elsewhere in Africa
Access Nollywood: Origins, Directions and Developments in Contemporary Nigerian Cinema
critique
rédigé par Jonathan Haynes
publié le 21/03/2008

Abstract:

The term "Nollywood" disguises the internal differentiation of Nigerian video film production, which includes an almost completely separate Hausa-language branch. But "Nollywood" does suggest that, like Hollywood and Bollywood, English-language Nigerian films have attained a certain hegemony across much of Africa. In all three cases the hegemony is based on economies of scale and consequent relatively high production values, but cultural factors also play a role. The example of Ghana, whose once-flourishing video industry has been crushed by Nigerian competition, is particularly important and telling.

"Nollywood": Not everyone likes it; I have reservations and don't mean to push it, but I think we're stuck with it - too attractive to journalists, and too close to aspirations of the film industry and its fans. Points to a mass entertainment industry, a powerful center of cultural gravity and glamour, with a strong international export dimension, regional dominance.
Some object to the connotation of imitation, but it's mostly used with pride.
Coined by Matt Steinglass, a foreigner, cf. "Nigeria", invented by Lord Lugard's girlfriend, but generations of Nigerians have gotten past that. Names tend to be strange: "America" named after a pretty insignificant 15th c Italian, probably a liar; "Bollywood" anachronistic - "Bombay" no longer exists - and "Hindi film" similarly covers up multiethnic film production in India.
Nollywood at least has the virtue of referring to Bollywood as well as Hollywood - a multipolar world.

What are the boundaries of the term? An open question (i.e. I don't know, but suspect it isn't settled.). Certainly when seen from outside Nigeria, it refers to English-language, Surulere-produced, Idumota-distributed, Igbo-marketer-controlled Nigerian films. Jide Ogungbade calls it "Engli-gbo" (Olayiwola Adeniji, "Ploughing the Uncharte Paths of Nollywood," Oct. 10, 2004 www.nollywood.com/artman/publish/printer_66.shtml 11/8/2004). This is far from the whole - English-language "Nollywood" one of three roughly equal branches, along with Yoruba and Hausa (a third in terms of numbers of films, probably a larger fraction in terms of money), with Igbo-language film a distant fourth, a sector that's almost completely integrated with the larger English-language distribution system, which Igbos dominate across southern Nigeria (and elsewhere). Yoruba the first, strongest history/lineage, distinct socio-cultural base, tho there were always links (e.g. Nnebue); increasingly integrated, many cross-over artists, now not just Yorubas looking for a wider market (Jide Kosoko), but non-Yorubas with reputations making Yoruba films.

Hausa film is big: Matthias: currently 200 producers in Kano, 350 films a year.

A world apart. Terminology: in the north, "Nollywood" English-language films are called "Nigerian films" (Abdalla, pc). Terms "Kanywood", "Kallywood" are floating aaround (Krings): express awareness of and deliberate difference from Nollywood Completely different distribution system, international networks.

Cultural mediations in Kaduna and Jos, e.g. Suleiman Sa'eed, "John Woo of Nigeria", now out of the country and of the business, Nasara (Victory): A Violent Love Story (2001); or Izu Ojukwu's Jan Wuya (2001), and Iyke Moore, Igbo based in Kano's Sabon Gari, mixed crew Dan Adam (Butulu).
But Kano is in a different world, more (and more deliberately) so since the introduction of Shari'a law and subsequent creation of a Kano State Censors Board. "Nigerian" films a presence, but Indian films perhaps still more important. Song and dance, music industry, films often begin with a song taken to a producer (Abdalla).
Very strong, organized ideological discourses about them, both Islamacist and culturalist (Abdalla Uba Adamu). Abdalla also theorizes that the conflict resolution/ dramatic tension model of plotting inherited by both Hollywood and Nollywood from Aristotle isn't Hausa; they prefer a "linear" sermonizing to raising dramatic tension (Cologne 15 Nov 04).

In the south, deep and pervasive ignorance about them (Tade doesn't know anyone with a Hausa film in his house). Knowledge would probably not lead to interest - they seem slow-moving, constrained by southern standards. A scholar or two have confessed to me they are more interesting to talk about than to see. Very unlikely to make inroads internationally the way Nollywood films are - won't be shown on Namibian tv, they are not getting to events like this one.

The national institutions - Nigerian Film Corporation and the National Film and Video Censors Board - see the whole picture. But they've had little or nothing to do with the growth of the video industry, though Censors Board is now a real player and Afolabi's appointment as MD of NFC is a good sign. Healing the rift between north and south has been and should be a task for NFC, but I'm not optimistic, since it's a rooted, deliberate difference.

NOLLYWOOD'S EXTERNAL DIMENSION

Reports from all over the continent of Nigerian films on sale, on TV, being trundled out to remotest villages.
In the spate of films shot at least partly abroad (e.g. Osuofia in London, but others shot all over Europe, US and Canada, Ghana, South Africa beginning to appear, Sierra Leone and Liberia) we see the shape of things to come, the lure, the potential, of an international dimension.

Technological conditions and Nigerian example have led to imitation all over the continent, but beware of technological determinism. The practical question for Africa now is whether other places can achieve industrial scale in the face of the Nigerian colossus.
Commercial domination/ cultural imperialism based on economies of scale because of huge domestic market leading to higher production values, and then export market fueling further economies of scale. Same logic as the rise of Hollywood. And local producers have to charge more for their cassettes-same logic that has made celluloid film production so difficult in Africa.

But other more contingent factors are also crucial, e.g. cultural infrastructure that's ready to go, local cinema, television, and theater traditions.

Cf. Kenya sputtering - Albert Wandogo & NGO art, Judy Kibinge, who with her producer Njeri Karago has made Dangerous Affairs (2002) and Project Daddy (2004), both deliberately imitating Nigerian films, Amaka-style, and with some international aid, training by Ford Foundation. They seem pretty far from the grass roots.

Doubtless room for a francophone center of production; shoud have been Ivory Coast, but may be Congo. Probably there won't be one, clear-cut answer to this question.

Curious role of Nigerian piracy in discussions of international market and cultural imperialism: Hollywood makes nothing off the Nigerian market, Nollywood, or rather the proper people in Nollywood, makes little from its exports. But this may well change.


GHANA

The first, by a few months; Barlet reports Holy Rock in Lagos got idea from Ghana.
Ghana always ran parallel, always an intercommunicating zone with Lagos "Informal" distribution both ways

In late 1990s, there were 50 active production companies, working full-time, but then crushed by Nigerians, amidst charges of cultural imperialism. By 2002, about a dozen; currently, one.

What happened?

Choices by television programmers, both of scheduling and of content, destroyed theatrical distribution, which had been important.
Ghanaians had to lower their prices to compete with pirated Nigerian tapes.
Colonization: coproductions, arrogant stars and false advertising. Lack of reciprocity in distribution.
Ghanaian films strictly censored while Nigerian films not, and so could sell titillating levels of sex and violence, an issue addressed too late. Corresponds to an apparent law where foreign materials can be more permissive than African, and foreign African more than local.
And compounded by relative conservatism of Ghanaians, relative wildness of Nigeria & esp Lagos. Birgit Meyer on Ghanaian image of Nigeria.

We're now deep into the realm of audience choice, which is finally determining.
Relative narrowness: Accra; English (but Kofi Yerenkyi, Santo; to a surprising extent, the historical power and centrality of the Asante has not manifested itself) (rumors of Kumasi "Independents"). So now loyalty like that of the Yoruba audience.
Extreme caution of Ghanaian filmmakers, based on their poverty and precariousness: generic narrowness, restricted to family melodrama (few action, cultural epics).
Birgit's theory of ideology (not necessarily a reason for lack of sales).

And production values: programming Milan festival, hard to find Ghanaian films that could stand up in comparison with recent Nigerian productions.

Again, strong parallel with Hollywood: more skill, money, flash, star power, materialism, sex, violence, dream factory as opposed to artisanal production.

News of ban on import of Nigerian films.


CONCLUSION

Size does matter. This is an example of Nigeria really living up to its potential role as a leader of Africa; along with the rise of South Africa as a media power across the continent, we're seeing, for better or for worse, the delayed emergence of what I think is and will remain a fundamental historical pattern of dominance: South Africa specializing in the things that require large, rationally-managed capital and technical formations- broadcast media e.g. satellite TV, celluloid film production and theater ownership, distribution; Nigeria exploiting its restless imagination, cultural depth, and entrepreneurial drive.

Hollywood is a monolith; Nollywood has tendencies that way. As in Hollywood, increasing role of export market will lead to standardization, cultural simplification, massification. The exported films are Nollywood films: Saworoide never gets to Ghana, where people have no idea films are made in Yoruba and Hausa, but TK gets to all the international festivals - the market is segmenting a couple of times.
I've always been interested in the diversity and "popular" character of the phenomenon, but better quality is also an important value, which has visibly been achieved in the last few years, and real life is full of tradeoffs.

Jonathan Haynes

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