Educational Media Reviews Online

Mention the name Cannes, Sundance, or Tribeca to a group of friends, and it’s likely that someone will know that you are referring to film festivals. Subsequently, mention the names Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), or Nollywood to the same group of friends, and you are likely to receive a look that says the lights are on, but nobody’s home. Yet, to its credit, thousands trek to Ouagadougou in Burkino Faso to preview the latest representations of Africans in film and television. It is the premiere film festival on the continent. However, there’s a new kid in town, and it’s taking the movie industry by storm.

Nollywood films, a term applied to films produced in and distributed from Lagos, Nigeria, has become the third largest producer of direct-to-home videos behind those produced in Hollywood and India. Between 1,500 and 1,800 films are shipped annually around the globe from the Alaba International Market in Lagos. The filmmaking market generates more than $250 million dollars per year, second to the oil industry. For such an impoverished country, this fast-growing business is a force to be reckoned with.

At the heart of this documentary is Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima, filmmaker, producer, founder and CEO of the African Movie Academy Awards, and leading advocate of Nollywood films. She is an indefatigable, astute businesswoman who stops at nothing to gain wider exposure for the films produced in this part of the country. At the invitation of Anyiam-Fibersesima, Dorothee Wenner and her crew follow Anyiam-Fiberesima around the city documenting her actions reminiscent of a video-diary reality show. The daughter of an oil businessman, and sister to seven brothers, she meticulously conducts most of her business from the back seat of her chauffeured-driven car. Her powerful status as a leading businesswoman is keenly evident as she is able to set up on-the-spot interviews with notable Nigerian filmmakers and actors for Wenner’s camera crew. Anyiam-Fiberesima explains that it is her goal to provide accessibility to more celluloid representations of Africans for the African people. Her daily journey also provides a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes look of the Nollywood film industry. Makeshift theatres and poor quality viewing equipment—often a TV monitor, VHS/DVD playback machine, and stereo speakers—are positioned throughout poor neighborhoods in Lagos. These makeshift theaters cost little to build and operate, and therefore, the savings are passed along to the consumer.

Nollywood Lady, as Anyiam-Fiberesima is so affectionately and respectfully referred to by her peers, provides a much-needed visual representation in response to the numerous and current articles being written about this art. Film critics are likely to bestow praise, and pan the content of Nollywood films, which seem to take its cue from human emotion, survival, and empowerment. Also questionable are the chop-shop editing, and technical aspects of Nollywod films. The lack of expensive studio equipment and quality studio sets may be the reason why, as Anyiam-Fiberesima points out, most films cost only between $40 – 50,000 to produce. Yet, one notable filmmaker comments that films produced in Nigeria are not intended to pacify European and Western moviegoers, but rather they serve as a vessel to allow Africans to tell their story. However passionate that statement may be, it is still clear from this reviewer’s standpoint that it’s “all about the Benjamins” as we say here in the United States.

The technical quality of the program is at best raw and rugged. The filmmaker uses a super-high digital camcorder to document the bustling activities and overcrowded squalor conditions of the city. The ambiance of the “theatre” experience appears to be staged for the camera. Any street corner or neighborhood doubles as a movie set. Very few, if any, studios exist in Lagos. Included are interviews with leading Nigerian filmmakers, producers and actors such as Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, Ifeanyi Onyeabor, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Dr. Don Pedro Obasseki, Maimunah and Frank Sayyadi. Nollywood Lady also includes archival footage from numerous Nollywood films which depict scenes that address the psychological well-being of an AIDS patient, religion and faith, science fiction, and slow-paced soap-opera relationships.

The musical direction of Philip Scheffner is top-notch, and this reviewer was content to accept the production of the film at face value. If you are looking for a well balanced, studio-financed documentary with quality editing and direction, then this documentary may not be your prime selection. However, if faculty and students are interested in the driving force behind Nollywood films, as well as an introduction to the themes important to the African people, in particular the Nigerian people, then this film serves as a pedagogical resource tool for critique and analysis.

Also of interest is Welcome to Nollywood: Uncovering Nigeria’s Thriving Film Industry distributed by Cinema Guild, and Nollywood Babylon soon to be released from Alive Mind Education.

I recommend this film for academic libraries. Students in African, media, and women’s studies will benefit from this resource.