In tackling this topic, I shall be taking a look at what is African cinema, I shall attempt to deconstruct the phenomenon called Nollywood, then finally I shall be exploring the lesson in it for emerging film makers. What is African cinema?
For me, African cinema is that cinema by Africans for Africans, which cuts across the socio-cultural boundaries of the continent, defying all artificial geographical and political barriers, capturing the essence of the African Tales by Moonlight with themes which know no colour, language, or nationality but which by themselves are a reflection in the mind of the individual of his own experiences and environment.
This is what Nollywood has come to represent on the continent and beyond. This is the raison d’etre of its monumental success across the continent and beyond, in spite of the so-called mediocre standards of its production quality.
The Nollywood phenomenon
At the very heart of the Nollywood phenomenon is a concept in African philosophy called ontological solidarity, where the strength of one is derived from the group. Modern management calls it synergy. I suspect the concept was borrowed from Africa, but as usual we have not been credited.
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When the industry started, the early players did not have money, only a burning passion to tell their tales, this time not by moonlight but by kleiglights. The African concept of “we till your farm today, tomorrow you all till mine” helped push many dreams through.
On matters of standards, Nollywood has taught the rest of Africa that the man with the word processor and the man with the pencil are both writers, and that if you tell a compelling enough story with your pencil, people will ultimately reckon with you. Before now on the rest of the continent, in many countries, not more than two films were shot averagely in a year, and usually by the same people who would wait in some cases for up to two years for a grant application to be approved by gate-keepers who determine the kinds of stories emerging from the film makers. It is no wonder therefore that although they may make waves in foreign film festival circuits, these films usually did not make sense to the ordinary African and they are usually a financial failure, thus precipitating a vicious circle of dependency syndrome.
Nollywood has come to shatter the myth that one must have a multimillion dollar budget to shoot a film. It has demonstrated creativity in its production and distribution strategies: unique only to it and very effective in its environment. The success of the Nollywood model attracted first the jeer, and now the cheer of the rest of the world because of its independent and creative home grown strategy of developing its industry. Today’s American movies have lost their dominance.
