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ASABA, Nigeria — Sitting on a blue plastic stool in the sweltering heat, Ugezu J. Ugezu, one of Nigeria’s top filmmakers,
was furiously rewriting his script as the cameras prepared to roll.
“Cut!” he shouted after wrapping up a key scene, a confrontation between
the two leading characters. Then, under his breath, he added, “Good as
it gets.”
This
was the seventh and last day of shooting in a village near here for
“Beyond the Dance,” Mr. Ugezu’s story of an African prince’s choice of a
bride, and the production had been conducted at a breakneck pace.
“In
Nollywood, you don’t waste time,” he said. “It’s not the technical
depth that has made our films so popular. It’s because of the story. We
tell African stories.”
The stories told by Nigeria’s booming film industry, known as Nollywood,
have emerged as a cultural phenomenon across Africa, the vanguard of
the country’s growing influence across the continent in music, comedy, fashion and even religion.
Nigeria,
Africa’s most populous nation, overtook its rival, South Africa, as the
continent’s largest economy two years ago, thanks in part to the film
industry’s explosive growth. Nollywood a term I helped coin with a 2002 article
when Nigeria’s movies were just starting to gain popularity outside the
country is an expression of boundless Nigerian entrepreneurialism and
the nation’s self-perception as the natural leader of Africa, the one
destined to speak on the continent’s behalf.
“The
Nigerian movies are very, very popular in Tanzania, and, culturally,
they’ve affected a lot of people,” said Songa wa Songa, a Tanzanian
journalist. “A lot of people now speak with a Nigerian accent here very
well thanks to Nollywood. Nigerians have succeeded through Nollywood to
export who they are, their culture, their lifestyle, everything.”
Nollywood
generates about 2,500 movies a year, making it the second-biggest
producer after Bollywood in India, and its films have displaced
American, Indian and Chinese ones on the televisions that are ubiquitous
in bars, hair salons, airport lounges and homes across Africa.
The
industry employs a million people second only to farming in
Nigeria, pumping $600 million annually into the national economy,
according to a 2014 report by the United States International Trade
Commission. In 2002, it made 400 movies and $45 million.
Nollywood
resonates across Africa with its stories of a precolonial past and of a
present caught between village life and urban modernity. The movies
explore the tensions between the individual and extended families,
between the draw of urban life and the pull of the village, between
Christianity and traditional beliefs. For countless people, in a place
long shaped by outsiders, Nollywood is redefining the African
experience.
“I
doubt that a white person, a European or American, can appreciate
Nollywood movies the way an African can,” said Katsuva Ngoloma, a
linguist at the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of
Congo who has written about Nollywood’s significance. “But Africans
the rich, the poor, everyone will see themselves in those movies in
one way or another.”
In
Yeoville, a neighborhood in Johannesburg that is a melting pot for
migrants, a seamstress from Ghana took orders one recent morning for the
latest fashions seen in Nollywood movies. Hairstylists from the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, working in salons
or on the street, offered hair weaves following the styles favored by
Nollywood actresses.
“Nigerian
movies express how we live as Africans, what we experience in our
everyday lives, things like witchcraft, things like fighting between
mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws,” said Patience Moyo, 34, a
Zimbabwean hair-braider. “When you watch the movies, you feel it is
really happening. One way or another, it will touch your life
somewhere.”
When
I first reported on Nigeria’s film industry more than a decade ago, the
movies were slapped together in such a makeshift fashion that, during
one interview, a production manager offered me the part of an evil white
man. (Never mind my Japanese roots, he assured me, I was close enough.)
After I casually threw out the term “Nollywood”
in a conversation with a colleague, a copy editor created this headline
for my article: “Step Aside, L.A. and Bombay, for Nollywood.”
The
name stuck and spread. But success hasn’t robbed Nollywood of its
freewheeling ways: During my recent visit to a Nigerian village where a
half-dozen movies were being shot, a producer came over and, on the
spot, offered me the role of an evil white man who brings a vampire to
Nigeria.
Back
in 2002, the movies were simply known as Nigeria’s home videos. They
were popularized at first through video cassettes traded across Africa,
but now Nollywood is available on satellite and cable television
channels, as well as on streaming services like iRokoTV. In 2012, in
response to swelling popularity in Francophone Africa, a satellite
channel called Nollywood TV began offering round-the-clock movies dubbed
into French. Most Nollywood movies are in English, though some are in
one of Nigeria’s main ethnic languages.
Until
Nollywood’s ascendance, movies made in Francophone Africa with grants
from the French government dominated filmmaking on the continent. But
these movies catered to the sensibilities of Western critics and
viewers, and won few fans in Africa, leaving no cultural footprint.
In Nollywood, though, movies are still financed by private investors expecting a profit.
“You
want to do a movie? You have the script? You look immediately for the
money and you shoot,” said Mahmood Ali-Balogun, a leading Nigerian
filmmaker. “When you get a grant from France or the E.U., they can
dictate to you where to put your camera, the fine-tuning of your script.
It’s not a good model for us in Africa.”
Mr.
Ali-Balogun was speaking from his office in Surulere, Lagos, the
birthplace of Nollywood. Film production has since moved to other
cities, especially Asaba, an otherwise sleepy state capital in
southeastern Nigeria. On any given day, a dozen crews can be found here
“epic” films with ancient story lines like “Beyond the Dance” are in
the works in nearby villages, while “glamour” movies about modern life
make the city itself their sets.
One recent entry in the glamour category was “Okada 50,”
the story of a woman and son who, after leaving their village, open a
coffin business in the city and terrorize their neighbors.
Most films have budgets of about $25,000 and are shot in a week.
Once
completed in Asaba, the movies find their way to every corner of
Africa, released in the original English, dubbed into French or African
languages, and sometimes readapted, repackaged and often pirated for
local audiences. Many movies are also propelled by a symbiotic
relationship with Nigeria’s Pentecostal Christianity, which pastors have
exported throughout Africa.
In
the Democratic Republic of Congo, pastors who visited Nigeria years ago
returned with videocassettes and showed the films in church to teach
Christian lessons and attract new members, said Katrien Pype, a Belgian
anthropologist at the University of Leuven who has written about the
phenomenon.
Today
in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, Nollywood permeates mainstream
culture. Local women copy the fashion, makeup and hairstyles of the
actresses; local musicians grumble at the popularity of Nigerian
imports, like Don Jazzy and the P-Square twins.
Trésor Baka, a Congolese dubber who translates Nollywood movies
into the local language, Lingala, said the films are popular because
“Nigeria has succeeded in reconciling modernity and their ancient ways,
their culture and traditions.”
Nollywood
has also created a model for movie production in other African nations,
said Matthias Krings, a German expert on African popular culture at
Johannes Gutenberg University.
In
Kitwe, Zambia, local filmmakers were recently making their latest movie
in true Nollywood style: a family melodrama shot over 10 days, in a
private home, on a $7,000 budget. Burned onto DVD, the movie will be
sold in Zambia and neighboring countries.
Acknowledging the influence of Nigerian cinema, the movie’s producer, Morgan Mbulo, 36, said, “We can tell our own stories now.”
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