The Nigerian Video Film Industry: Challenges and Prospects
By Patrick Ebewo

MOTION PICTURES WERE REPORTEDLY FIRST SCREENED IN NIGERIA in August of 1903, when Nigerian nationalist Herbert Macaulay, in association with the Balboa film company of Spain, introduced the new medium to an audience assembled in Glover Memorial Hall in Lagos (Owens-Ibie).

Over five decades later, the first film production companies, Latola Film (founded in 1962) and Calpeny Nigeria Limited (1970), were established in Nigeria (Amobi). In addition to Latola and Calpeny, members of the Nigerian theater community promoted film culture as well. In fact, the current video film industry in Nigeria owes a huge debt to the pioneers of Nigerian theater, particularly practitioners of the Yoruba Traveling Theater, who branched off from mainstream theater to experiment with celluloid.

While the introduction of mobile cinema by the British during colonial times may have created awareness and interest in film, the medium was used primarily to educate Nigerians about such issues as health, sanitation, and nutrition. In the late 1960s, dramatists Hubert Ogunde, who recorded his plays on celluloid, Moses Adejumo (alias Baba Sala), and Duro Ladipo were responsible for elevating the cinema to a popular art that also contained social commentary (Ekwuazi 9). The legacy of those indigenous filmmakers was bequeathed to Ola Balogun, Ade Love, and Eddie Ugbomah — prolific filmmakers of the 1980s who extended the pioneer efforts of the early dramatists and ushered Nigerian moviemaking into the modern age...

Despite its fame, however, some critics — both local and international — see the Nigerian film industry as a poor imitation of the real thing. Productions are plagued by technical glitches. According to journalist-critic Trenton Daniel, "the plots are sentimental, the acting raw, and the cable-access editing not unlike that of an X-rated flick, minus the randy parts. … Production values are deplorable; special effects leave much to the imagination" (Nollywood). Writing in Film Comment, Olaf Möller also dismisses Nollywood films: "Give or take a minor masterpiece or two, nothing could be further from wholesome art cinema, with its healthy messages and clean-cut images, than this lurid West African smut, dedicated to making money hand over fist" ("Homegrown Hybrid"wink. Though critics may not adopt the contemptuous manner of some critics of the Frankfurt School castigating the culture industry, we know any enterprise will encounter problems on its initial outing.

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Very interesting article, thanks for posting it.

are there any professional critiques/critics for the industry [individual movies might be too many, i agree], same way its done overseas?

just wondering.