NIGERIA AND NOLLYWOOD-by Belén Maña

“Nigeria and Nollywood”

 

As we all know, Africa is a big and heterogeneous continent formed by a lot of different countries. At the same time, all these countries are heterogeneous too, so in the same country half of the people are rich and the other half is extremely poor.

This is the case of Nigeria, which is known as a poor country. However, in Nigeria, apart from the poor people (the huge majority), there are wealthy people becoming richer and richer thanks to Nigerian businesses like oil production or film making, known as Nollywood.

Everybody knows Hollywood, one of the oldest film industries and possibly the most famous in the world; and Bollywood, the famous Indian film industry; and everybody knows Nollywood too... or not?

Nollywood is the Nigerian film industry, and despite what most people may think, it is one of the largest film industries in the world, referring to the number of annual film productions.

The name of Nollywood comes from the 90s due to the mix between the “N” of Nigeria and Hollywood, (something similar to Bollywood: Bombay+Hollywood) and it is established in Lagos, ex-capital and currently the most important city in the country. This film industry has produced a lot of films since its start around 1992, and some years ago Unesco declared Nollywood to be the second country in quantity of films produced, following Bollywood and followed by Hollywood.

The reason why Nollywood’s production list is that large is because they invest over 12.000€ and between 7 to 10 days in producing a film, so they are able to produce more than 850 films a year; instead of Hollywood that produces less than 500 films but investing millions of euros and a lot of time.

But, Why isn’t Nollywood well known? It may be because 99% of its films are just watched at home theatres or clubs and less than a 1% end up in cinemas. In addition, most of Nigerian’s films are made in local languages, and just a few of them are translated or subtitled to English.

And, Which topics are Nollywood films about? These films present plenty of varied topics but most of them are trying to express their way of life and, curiously, a lot of them are Christian-themed motivated by churches trying to encourage and evangelize instead of entertaining.

Some famous Nollywood films are: Living in Bondage (one of the first films made by this industry), Osuofia in London (best selling film of the country) or Inale (their first big musical production).

 

Maybe the difference between Hollywood and Nollywood’s productions is the quality or the post-production process, but it’s undeniable that Nollywood’s producers try to do their best and that "Africans like more Nollywood than Hollywood" as the famous Nigerian producer Zeb Ejiro said.