[b] Nollywood: Full Story on the Nigerian Movie Industry
Nollywood: Full Story on the Rise of the Nigerian film 1
By Uduma Kalu
After the rehearsals in 1926, the British government was ready to shoot its first film in Nigeria.
The camera was brought in. Sound, light, costume, make up and continuity were double checked, and every thing was set. Then the director yelled “Action!”
And the shooting began.
Some months later, Palaver, a major landmark in the chequered history of Nigeria film industry was ready.
Twenty-three years after, that film was premiered at the Glover Memorial Hall, Lagos.
The success story of Palaver and the enthusiasm it built among potential film makers put paid to the hitherto monopoly enjoyed by two film redistribution organisations of the Federal Film Unit – W. Hewston in 1961, shortly after independence.
By implication that move which provided training for three Nigerians- A.A. Fayemisin, J.A. Otiga and Yakubu Aura- at the Film Training School in Ghana, paved way for the emergence of a virile film industry in Nigeria. It also provided convenient playing field for some indigenous film makers , most of who moved from the then vibrant theatre tradition to the screen.
Those who built a passion for the big screen over time included Chief Eddie Ugbomah, late Chief Herbert Ogunde, Dr Ola Balogun among others.
However, the Federal Film Unit concentrated on the production of mostly documentary and newsreel films.
Soon after, few attempts were made at producing films. Between 1962 and 1977 films like Born in Lagos, Child Bride, Son of Africa, Golden women, , My Good Friends, Count Down at Kusini and ShehuUmar were produced. The independent film makers had emerged.
Works like Ajani Ogun and Ija Ominira by Ola Balogun, Aiye Jayesimi and Ayanmo by Ogunde, The Rise and Fall of Dr Oyenusi and Death of a Black President by Ugbomah, Kadara by Ade Love, Orun Mooru and Mosebolatan by Moses Olaiya, Efusetan Aniwuray by Ishola Ogunshola and Ireke Onibudo by Ayo Rasak, among others, including the much popular Bisi, Daughter of the River, Amadi, Kongi’s Harvest, Shehu Umar, Maitasine, Things Fall Apart, which joined the film stable.
Except for a few of the works like Imruh Ba Bakari’s Shehu Umar directed by Adamu Halilu, all the other films were did recorded no historical success, commercially.
In fact, most of the products found it difficult to recoup the enormous amount spent on producing the works. Indeed, most of them reportedly burnt their fingers.
The high cost of production, with the chunk of the producer’s budget going into hiring of equipment and crew from abroad. and post-production overseas, kept producers contemplating on whether it was worth it to produce big screen movies or not.
Film financing became the main issue. Next was lack of exhibition centres, an avenue which most of the filmmakers hoped would generate quick return on investment.
Nigeria’s political and economic quagmire worsened issues for the producers.
Not even the establishment of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) which remains a major landmark, or the setting up of such infrastructure as the Colour Film Processing Laboratory, the Sound Dubbing Studio, the National Film Archives, the National Film Institute, or even launch of the National Film Policy in 1992 to guarantee growth and sustainability, could keep profitably engaged, the celluloid practitioners, most of whom were forced to abandon their passion for the less tasking endeavour -home video-” a life belt.”
Most of them who had at various forms decried the danger posed by video to the survival of a virile film industry successfully jumped on the bandwagon of the video craze as it became increasingly difficult to produce new films on celluloid.
Ugbomah, for instance, produced a record thirteen films but was forced to convert about six of his works including Death of a Black President, Omiran and lately, Aba Women Riot into video. The same thing late Ade Love did when he converted Ija Onimira to video.
With the growing screening of human video products in standard halls at the expense of the celluloid, and the new penchant of the viewing public for the video consumption, an attitude which some blamed on Nigeria’s political upheaval and the attendant insecurity on the street, the film industry shrank, in terms of output and investment.
Today, what Nigeria has as a film industry is buoyant home video sector largely controlled by non practitioners, mostly marketers.
For the celluloid in the past 18 years, only Ladi Ladebo seems to have produced films, with his Power and Baba Zak, both completed in 1998. They are both 35 mm gauge. The M-Net New Directions initiative for African Filmmakers have yielded two 15 mm short films-Twins of the Rain Forest and A Place Called Home. [/b]

pazienza:
He further stated that "the historical trajectory of Nollywood started since the pre and post independent Nigeria, with the theatrical (stage) and cinematic (celluloid)) efforts of the likes of Chief Hubert Ogunde, Chief Amata, Baba Sala (Moses Olaiya), Ade Love, Eddie Ugboma and a few others".

This is not nollywood. This is Yoruba film making ie TV dramas, soap operas and all what.Yes some non Yoruba persons might have been involved in it, but it was essentially a Yoruba concept. It wasn't much commercially rewarding.

Mr man shut up. You don't know anything about filmmaking. You are only here for argument based on a bigoted lifestyle you living.

There were live dramas, movies on celluloid, soap operas on the first TV station in Africa (WNTV Ibadan)
Wasn't much commercially? Yet Cinemas were always filled , yet the names of these movies are still remembered. Stop deceiving yourself

[b] Nigeria in African film production
For most film critics such as Jonathan Haynes and Onookome Okome in their essay, Evolving Popular Media: Nigerian Video Production, published in the reputable Okike Magazine, Nigeria, unlike most countries, film production has been absorbed into the realm of popular culture, adding that elsewhere, particularly in the francophone countries, film makers have been, for the most part, educated, self-conscious artists, often with political or social motivations, and the system for producing films had included a crucial role for European funding sources and international distribution to film festivals and other non-commercial outlets. In those venues at least, African films tend to be categorized as “art cinema.”
They allege that in Nigeria, what have proved successful are films, but since filmmaking has become prohibitively expensive, dramas are shot directly on video and sold as video cassettes, produced by artists from the Yoruba Travelling Theatre tradition. These artists work outside the international circuits, sustaining themselves, instead, as a form of popular culture in immediate relation with the working classes in Nigeria’s cities, particularly, those with a considerable Yoruba population.
Impact of the Yoruba Travelling Theatre. Both critics went on to say that scholars such as Biodun Jeyifo, Karin Barber and Christopher Waterman, elaborated that the Yoruba Travelling Theatre kind of production, was a popular culture with large audiences. The travelling embraced “the entire range of occupational and socio-economic groups and classes,” Jeyifo noted. The troupes “substantially played to the people as a whole,” rather than to exclusive, partial groupings or strata of the population, as is the case with the modern English language, literary theatre.”
The complexity in determining class differences in Africa made Jeyifo say, “The emergence and growth of the Travelling Theatre (are) bound up with the rise and phenomenal expansion of “certified” populations in modern Nigeria whose division into distinct groups and classes on the basis of education, status, wealth and political influence have so far been so fluid that no particular group or class has created a hegemonic culture, art form or life-style. In other words … no integral, dominant ruling class “high culture” has been definitely aspects and fragments of elite culture and life-style largely based on a composite mix of Western middle-class forms and neo-traditional approximations).”
The term popular art can be taken to mean the large class of new unofficial art forms which are concerned with social change, and associated with the masses. The centres of activity in this field, critics say are the cities, due to their pivotal position between the rural hinterland on the one hand and the metropolitan countries on the other.
Other film critics developed the common tripartite model for defining the popular arts, as being located in the shifting, indeterminate zone between the “traditional” and the Europeanized/elite, both of which work through more clearly defined conventions and institutions.
The popular art faces both ways at once – hence the vibrant eclecticism of the Yoruba Travelling Theatre, which draws at once on “deep” Yoruba verbal arts and the traditional cosmography evidence in the works of Chief Hubert Ogunde, and at the other extreme, the conventions of American situation comedies.
As they straddle cultural origins and genres, the Travelling Theatre practitioners also straddle several media. The critics point to how the Yoruba Travelling Theatre troupes might be simultaneously involved in stage productions, film, television records, and photoplay magazines, as a way of diversifying their resources in an intensely competitive, marginal economic niche.
Haynes and Okome argue that it is, of course, because the Travelling Theatre troupes had already established a relationship with their audience, outside the commercial cinema distribution system, that they survived as film and video makers while the collapsing economy drove nearly everyone else out of business.
While the formal characteristics of the popular theatre work have undergone rapid metamorphoses, Barber, another researcher sees their socio-economic origins notes the nascent petit bourgeoisie as the social layer most involved in producing this sort of art and their socio-economic organisation as the more or less constant elements.
The working of the Theatre
The Yoruba theatre companies, in the critics words, are small business enterprises operating like others in the Nigerian informal Sector. The conditions of their artistic production affect their relations to the mass media, their structure as organizations and, correspondingly, the structure as plays, and their relations to tradition and modernity.
The company retains its organisational integrity in relation to television, importing its personnel, its production methods, its style, and its subject matter more or less intact into the new medium.
Rather than imposing the uniform stamp of mass culture on these plays, the television seems to be invaded by chunks of the living popular culture that flourishes around it.
Jeyifo himself discovers that the Travelling Theatre practitioners have a strong artistic, guild consciousness – “extensive relationships of cooperation and competition between the companies (have led) to the very strong sense of corporate group identity and vocational distinctiveness that exists among them today” .
This has helped preserve their integrity, but it has also proved a limiting factor: their method of distributing their films “restricts them to an artisinal basis rather than an industrial and international one.
They seldom attempted to master cinematic technique on a fully professional basis, and tended to have rocky relationships with cinema professionals or those perceived as interlopers. [/b]

The above was Yoruba filming industry. It wasn't lucrative, it lacked commercial strength, it wasn't built on profit maximization.

This certainly isn't what nollywood of today represents.

Now enter the Igbo with the Midas touch: The rise of the concept behind modern day commercialized lucrative nollywood, masterminded by the great Igbo people:

pazienza:
[b] Nollywood: Full Story on the Nigerian Movie Industry
Nollywood: Full Story on the Rise of the Nigerian film 1
By Uduma Kalu
After the rehearsals in 1926, the British government was ready to shoot its first film in Nigeria.
The camera was brought in. Sound, light, costume, make up and continuity were double checked, and every thing was set. Then the director yelled “Action!”
And the shooting began.
Some months later, Palaver, a major landmark in the chequered history of Nigeria film industry was ready.
Twenty-three years after, that film was premiered at the Glover Memorial Hall, Lagos.
The success story of Palaver and the enthusiasm it built among potential film makers put paid to the hitherto monopoly enjoyed by two film redistribution organisations of the Federal Film Unit – W. Hewston in 1961, shortly after independence.
By implication that move which provided training for three Nigerians- A.A. Fayemisin, J.A. Otiga and Yakubu Aura- at the Film Training School in Ghana, paved way for the emergence of a virile film industry in Nigeria. It also provided convenient playing field for some indigenous film makers , most of who moved from the then vibrant theatre tradition to the screen.
Those who built a passion for the big screen over time included Chief Eddie Ugbomah, late Chief Herbert Ogunde, Dr Ola Balogun among others.
However, the Federal Film Unit concentrated on the production of mostly documentary and newsreel films.
Soon after, few attempts were made at producing films. Between 1962 and 1977 films like Born in Lagos, Child Bride, Son of Africa, Golden women, , My Good Friends, Count Down at Kusini and ShehuUmar were produced. The independent film makers had emerged.
Works like Ajani Ogun and Ija Ominira by Ola Balogun, Aiye Jayesimi and Ayanmo by Ogunde, The Rise and Fall of Dr Oyenusi and Death of a Black President by Ugbomah, Kadara by Ade Love, Orun Mooru and Mosebolatan by Moses Olaiya, Efusetan Aniwuray by Ishola Ogunshola and Ireke Onibudo by Ayo Rasak, among others, including the much popular Bisi, Daughter of the River, Amadi, Kongi’s Harvest, Shehu Umar, Maitasine, Things Fall Apart, which joined the film stable.
Except for a few of the works like Imruh Ba Bakari’s Shehu Umar directed by Adamu Halilu, all the other films were did recorded no historical success, commercially.
In fact, most of the products found it difficult to recoup the enormous amount spent on producing the works. Indeed, most of them reportedly burnt their fingers.
The high cost of production, with the chunk of the producer’s budget going into hiring of equipment and crew from abroad. and post-production overseas, kept producers contemplating on whether it was worth it to produce big screen movies or not.
Film financing became the main issue. Next was lack of exhibition centres, an avenue which most of the filmmakers hoped would generate quick return on investment.
Nigeria’s political and economic quagmire worsened issues for the producers.
Not even the establishment of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) which remains a major landmark, or the setting up of such infrastructure as the Colour Film Processing Laboratory, the Sound Dubbing Studio, the National Film Archives, the National Film Institute, or even launch of the National Film Policy in 1992 to guarantee growth and sustainability, could keep profitably engaged, the celluloid practitioners, most of whom were forced to abandon their passion for the less tasking endeavour -home video-” a life belt.”
Most of them who had at various forms decried the danger posed by video to the survival of a virile film industry successfully jumped on the bandwagon of the video craze as it became increasingly difficult to produce new films on celluloid.
Ugbomah, for instance, produced a record thirteen films but was forced to convert about six of his works including Death of a Black President, Omiran and lately, Aba Women Riot into video. The same thing late Ade Love did when he converted Ija Onimira to video.
With the growing screening of human video products in standard halls at the expense of the celluloid, and the new penchant of the viewing public for the video consumption, an attitude which some blamed on Nigeria’s political upheaval and the attendant insecurity on the street, the film industry shrank, in terms of output and investment.
Today, what Nigeria has as a film industry is buoyant home video sector largely controlled by non practitioners, mostly marketers.
For the celluloid in the past 18 years, only Ladi Ladebo seems to have produced films, with his Power and Baba Zak, both completed in 1998. They are both 35 mm gauge. The M-Net New Directions initiative for African Filmmakers have yielded two 15 mm short films-Twins of the Rain Forest and A Place Called Home. [/b]

You just proved that Yorubas started filmmaking in Nigeria

[b] The boom in Igbo video production.
It has always been problematic simply to equate the work of the Travelling Theatre artists with “Yoruba” cinema or video production as such ethnic labels are always dangerous.
But for the two of Okome and Haynes, the social basis of Yoruba-language production seems to have blurred as the professional video production houses in Lagos entered the picture, along with actors and directors who came from television or elsewhere, and who have tended to produce dramas set in the glamorous urban environment that are characteristic of the new Igbo videos.
The structure of the Igbo home video
The two emphasis that the production of the Igbo videos is organised very differently. To begin with, Igbo video production can be much more highly capitalized instead of relying on the resources of a struggling small-scale entrepreneur, the actor/manager of a theatre troupe, these videos draw on the wealth of the Igbo business class. They may be backed by big merchants from Onitsha or Aba or elsewhere, and the properties used- to represent the lavish lifestyles which are a normal feature of these videos- come through business networks of fashion houses, real estate brokers, car dealers, and so on, who are often eager to provide sponsorship for its publicity value.
Directors and technicians are drawn from a pool of professionals, and there is a concerted effort to build a star system of actors with name recognition, whose presence, as in Hollywood, will guarantee the investment in the project.
Current stars have mostly made their reputations through television appearances, but vehicles such as the magazine Nigerian Videos are designed to create an arena of publicity based in the videos themselves. Drawn by the prospect of relatively huge salaries (stars can make N500,000 for an appearance in a video), would be actors are flocking to the new industry from modelling careers, State Arts Councils, and the universities.
The financial muscle behind these productions is also brought to bear on the distribution end. Large numbers of copies of the cassettes are made at once and distributed through numerous channels, to discourage pirates and maximize publicity.
There are large profits to be made: in an interview, the producer Okechukwu Ogunjiofor said that with the N1,500 he had on him and a loan of N3,000, he immediately embarked on the shooting of Circle of Doom, from which he was able to buy a Benz and secure a comfortable home (Nigerian Videos, vol. 2 No. 1, p.20).
Distinguishing between Yoruba and Igbo Films
The two researchers went to say that the Igbo videos reach an audience that is almost entirely different from that of the original Yoruba Travelling Theatres. The put the differences along axes of ethnicity, gender, age and class.
For the two the ethnic difference is the most obvious, saying that Yoruba films and videos are fairly seldom subtitled, and only a few have been made in Pidgin with Jagua being a conspicuous exception.
They allege that in general there seemed to be little interest in making the concessions necessary to attract a non-Yoruba speaking audience in the Yoraba film. The Igbo community, however, in their findings, has naturally offered exciting support to its new cultural expression, but the videos are normally subtitled or contain a fair amount of English and/or Pidgin, as if aiming at an audience beyond that of the Igbo ethnic group. [/b]

" The boom in Igbo video production.
It has always been problematic simply to equate the work of the Travelling Theatre artists with “Yoruba” cinema or video production as such ethnic labels are always dangerous"

This is exactly the confusion the Yorubas are trying to create.

That is to pass off the Igbo commercialized and lucrative brand of movie production, as a continuum to their bland, impoverished, commercially non lucrative earlier brand. When in fact, the both industries and concepts developed individually, and are only morphed into one today to produce nollywood because Igbos share same country with Yorubas.

In my opinion, the thick line between Yoruba antiquated film making industry and the Igbo concept of early 90' that. resulted in a lucrative and highly commercialized movie industry independent of Yorubas, must always be maintained and emphasized upon, until unscrupulous elements within the Yorubas learn to give respect to who it's due, and stopped attempting to rewrite history.
Lest an Igbo legacy be stolen by a treacherous group.

pazienza:
The above was Yoruba filming industry. It wasn't lucrative, it lacked commercial strength, it wasn't built on profit maximization.

This certainly isn't what nollywood of today represents.

Now enter the Igbo with the Midas touch: The rise of the concept behind modern day commercialized lucrative nollywood, masterminded by the great Igbo people:

You don't seem to get the point I've been trying to make to you.

Filmmaking Industry in nigeria (now called Nollywood) started with Yoruba companies but was improved by some Igbos who had initially worked in these yoruba companies. .. over time, other Nigerians and Ghanaians have given indispensable contributions to the growth of the industry


Mehn if you don't get this then you have a strong problem following you around

[b] The Nigerian audience
The gender issue is perhaps less obvious but of deep significance. Everywhere in Nigeria cinema-going is predominantly a male activity, and for that matter, an activity for younger, poorer, and rowdier males; it is considered of more or less dubious respectability for girls and women. As Brain Larkin has pointed out in the context of Northern Nigeria, the advert of television and then video cassettes has opened up to women a media environment that was largely closed to them before.
The class character of the audience also needs to be investigated through empirical research. It would of course be a serious mistake to imagine that the luxury that appears in these videos corresponds at all to the life-style of its audience, in these days of economic hardship and the near annihilation of the Nigerian middle class.
The critics that for the sake of comparison, Hollywood consolidated its role as dream factory during the depths of the Great Depression, and that Dallas and Dynasty had their greatest following among the American lower middle and working classes.
One of the signs of the incomplete process of class formation in Nigeria is that – particularly in cultures like the Igbo and for that matter, the Yoruba where individual dynamics is much prized – nearly everyone aspires to rise socially and imagines there is some prospect of doing so, however slim the chances really are, so that the dream vision of a elite lifestyle is in some sense common property.
The ownership of a VCR and television set, while now a nearly universal aspiration, in the eyes of the critics, is in fact restricted to a large minority of the urban population. The younger and rougher cinema-going crowd may have access to these videos through video parlours, but in general one imagines this sort of production being consumed in a middle class sitting room, by small groups of people linked by family or close social ties.
The audience is in any case assembled in a privatized manner quite different from that of cinemas or the live audience of the Yoruba nation. Without entirely inscribing this process within a sentimental narrative of the breakdown of an original, traditional, unmediated community into modern alienation, the two recognized that video cassette production is a much more commodified form, a fact that has deep social as well as aesthetic consequences. Gone is the excitement generated by the presence of the actors at screenings of their films, and the general excitation of a popular neighbourhood by a sound track advertising the film or the performance.
The best studies of the Yoruba performance arts, or indeed of African arts in general, say the duo, have stressed how central are the immediate contact between performer and audience in the moment of performance, and the characteristic emphasis on social process rather than isolated aesthetic object. Only more or less dim echoes of this can be caught on video cassettes; once the videos stop being essentially records of performances in another medium it is natural for them to move towards an aesthetic formed on a different basis exploiting different values and potentials.
A Hostile environment
In the view of Okome and Haynes, the rise of the Igbo videos also corresponds to, among other things, a decline in public safety which makes going out at night a dubious proposition for the middle classes. The Igbo middle classes did not for the most part have the habit of going out in the evenings to things like theatre or cinema anyway, so that in their case the video cassettes do not displace an anterior indigenous cultural form as much as they claim a share of the market in televised and recorded video products, most of which are imported.
Hollywood in Lagos homes
It is no accident that the new Igbo videos have stirred up this depth and breadth of excitement, not least in the fairly broad layers of society that have grown up saturated by products of the international, chiefly American, culture industry. They were ready to make a response.
“Hollywood”, Okome and Haynes, an American argue, is constantly invoked as the model or inspiration. The video, they write, partly refer to the attempt to create a proper entertainment industry. Further, they give the differences between Hollywood and Igbo video-making, in scale of finance and in specialisation and intensity of labour processes, not to mention the aesthetic and cultural differences in the products, which are much more impressive than the similarities.
Nevertheless perhaps enough has been said to suggest that the emerging production structures represent an attempt on the part of dynamic and modern operators to set up audiovisual production on a full capitalist, industrial basis, aspiring to the technical capacity to copy the look of at least the minor Hollywood genres.
This will have to develop gradually with the market, and will have to contend with formidable difficulties – the general parlours state of the Nigerian economy, for one thing, and the fact that most of the sources of Hollywood’s revenue are currently unavailable (theatre release in cinemas, video rentals as opposed to sales, and sale of television broadcasting rights).
The new enthusiasm to many people is immensely promising and perhaps will provide the basis for a true film industry at some point in the future when circumstances again permit sustained production of celluloid. This is no small thing [/b]

In the view of Okome and Haynes, the rise of the Igbo videos also corresponds to, among other things, a decline in public safety which makes going out at night a dubious proposition for the middle classes. The Igbo middle classes did not for the most part have the habit of going out in the evenings to things like theatre or cinema anyway, so that in their case the video cassettes do not displace an anterior indigenous cultural form as much as they claim a share of the market in televised and recorded video products, most of which are imported.
Hollywood in Lagos homes
It is no accident that the new Igbo videos have stirred up this depth and breadth of excitement, not least in the fairly broad layers of society that have grown up saturated by products of the international, chiefly American, culture industry. They were ready to make a response.

These are salient points.

[b]
Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry making films with Ghanaians (and a few times Americans and Europeans) which are usually co-produced with Nigeria and/or distributed by Nigerian companies, as well as Nigerian diaspora films considered to be affiliated with Nigeria or made specifically to capture the Nigerian audience. The origin of the term dates back to early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times.
 The Origin of the term "Nollywood" remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass on The New York Times, where it was used to describe the Nigerian cinema. The term continue to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later believed to be a portmanteau of the words "Nigeria" and "Hollywood", the American major film hub.

 Alex Eyengho defined Nollywood as "the totality of activities taking place in the Nigerian film industry, be it in English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Itsekiri, Edo, Efik, Ijaw, Urhobo or any other of the over 300 Nigerian languages". He further stated that "the historical trajectory of Nollywood started since the pre and post independent Nigeria, with the theatrical (stage) and cinematic (celluloid)) efforts of the likes of Chief Hubert Ogunde, Chief Amata, Baba Sala (Moses Olaiya), Ade Love, Eddie Ugboma and a few others".

    Nollywood at 20 controversy

In 2012, it was announced that Nollywood would be celebrating its 20 years anniversary. This year marked the 20th year the direct-to-video movie Living in Bondage (1992) was released, which marked the boom in the video film era. The anniversary was eventually celebrated in June 2013.

The event was later revealed to be a decision of a segment of the industry and not a unanimously agreed event; the event was organized by Association of Movie Producers (AMP), an association consisting of producers of video films. Since announcement of the "Nollywood @ 20" event in 2012 till its celebration in 2013, the event had sparked controversies from many stakeholders; most of whom believed the industry was much older than 20 years. Since Nollywood has been a term for the entire Nigerian film industry, it was argued that Living in Bondage cannot be used to celebrate the Nigerian film industry, stating that the film wasn't in fact the first Nigerian video film, neither was it the first "successful" video film, talk less of being the first Nigerian film.
 arguments were made that the term "Nollywood" came into existence only in the 2000s, so explanations were needed on how the "Nollywood Brand" could be extendeded to the year 1992 which isn't specifically significant in anyway, and why not just to the very first Nigerian film that was made.  Alex Eyengho had noted in a 2012 article that the term "Nollywood" was absent during the formative years of both the video film era and the Golden Age. Seun Apara, in his article on 360Nobs.com stated: "It's either the promoters of the event didn't do their research well or intentionally do not want to reckon with history. Some media outlets also reported that the event was a result of greed and selfish interests, as the organizers visited political figures to solicit funds in the name of the Industry, but allegedly shared the funds raised amongst themselves.
 Kunle Afolayan commented: "The whole idea of Nollywood at 20 does not make sense to me because the Nollywood that I know is more than 20 years. I remember my father shot a film about 37 years ago and I also grew up in the industry. As far as am concerned, it's absolute crap". Jide Kosoko also commented: "The Nigerian movie industry as far as I'm concerned is not 20 years. If we all truly belong to the same industry, then the industry I belong to is not 20 years. There is a need to tell the world the sincere story of our industry and don't rubbish the pioneers. As far as I am concerned, what they are celebrating is Living in Bondage and not Nollywood

Tunde Kelani stated: "how will Nollywood be celebrating 20 years and I am over 40 years in the industry?"
 President of "Actors Guild of Nigeria" at the time, Ibinabo Fiberesima, admitted that Nollywood is more than 20, but gave what was considered an unconvincing statement on the reason behind the event, stating: "It's about celebrating our own even though Nollywood is more than 20 years. It's been long that people have been celebrating us but right now, we are celebrating ourselves and giving lots back to the society. It's a good step we have taken especially now that the qualities of our movies have improved [/b]


Read and stop behaving like a monkey, I except human beings to be more intelligent than this

macof:


You don't seem to get the point I've been trying to make to you.

Filmmaking Industry in nigeria (now called Nollywood) started with Yoruba companies but was improved by some Igbos who had initially worked in these yoruba companies. .. over time, other Nigerians and Ghanaians have given indispensable contributions to the growth of the industry


Mehn if you don't get this then you have a strong problem following you around

I don't care when Yorubas started making films, for all I care, it could have been in 1880. Do you for once think that Yorubas were the only ones doing films all over Africa at those 60's?

The only thing I care about is the fact that the concept, the brand and the brain on which modern commercially lucrative nollywood was built on, is a model conceived, nurtured and developed by Igbo film makers who were late entrants into movie making in Africa.

And any attempt by Yorubas to lay claim to the nollywood fame by trying to confuse their antiquated commercially non viable film industry of 1960s wilth the Highly commercialized lucrative movie making revolution started by Ndiigbo that took the rest of African continent by storm due to effective marketing and distribution strategies, will always be violently nipped on the bud by Igboists.

Learn to give respect to Ndiigbo, and be grateul for our Midas touch on Nigeria movie Arena.

macof:
[b]
Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry making films with Ghanaians (and a few times Americans and Europeans) which are usually co-produced with Nigeria and/or distributed by Nigerian companies, as well as Nigerian diaspora films considered to be affiliated with Nigeria or made specifically to capture the Nigerian audience. The origin of the term dates back to early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times.
 The Origin of the term "Nollywood" remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass on The New York Times, where it was used to describe the Nigerian cinema. The term continue to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later believed to be a portmanteau of the words "Nigeria" and "Hollywood", the American major film hub.

 Alex Eyengho defined Nollywood as "the totality of activities taking place in the Nigerian film industry, be it in English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Itsekiri, Edo, Efik, Ijaw, Urhobo or any other of the over 300 Nigerian languages". He further stated that "the historical trajectory of Nollywood started since the pre and post independent Nigeria, with the theatrical (stage) and cinematic (celluloid)) efforts of the likes of Chief Hubert Ogunde, Chief Amata, Baba Sala (Moses Olaiya), Ade Love, Eddie Ugboma and a few others".

    Nollywood at 20 controversy

In 2012, it was announced that Nollywood would be celebrating its 20 years anniversary. This year marked the 20th year the direct-to-video movie Living in Bondage (1992) was released, which marked the boom in the video film era. The anniversary was eventually celebrated in June 2013.

The event was later revealed to be a decision of a segment of the industry and not a unanimously agreed event; the event was organized by Association of Movie Producers (AMP), an association consisting of producers of video films. Since announcement of the "Nollywood @ 20" event in 2012 till its celebration in 2013, the event had sparked controversies from many stakeholders; most of whom believed the industry was much older than 20 years. Since Nollywood has been a term for the entire Nigerian film industry, it was argued that Living in Bondage cannot be used to celebrate the Nigerian film industry, stating that the film wasn't in fact the first Nigerian video film, neither was it the first "successful" video film, talk less of being the first Nigerian film.
 arguments were made that the term "Nollywood" came into existence only in the 2000s, so explanations were needed on how the "Nollywood Brand" could be extendeded to the year 1992 which isn't specifically significant in anyway, and why not just to the very first Nigerian film that was made.  Alex Eyengho had noted in a 2012 article that the term "Nollywood" was absent during the formative years of both the video film era and the Golden Age. Seun Apara, in his article on 360Nobs.com stated: "It's either the promoters of the event didn't do their research well or intentionally do not want to reckon with history. Some media outlets also reported that the event was a result of greed and selfish interests, as the organizers visited political figures to solicit funds in the name of the Industry, but allegedly shared the funds raised amongst themselves.
 Kunle Afolayan commented: "The whole idea of Nollywood at 20 does not make sense to me because the Nollywood that I know is more than 20 years. I remember my father shot a film about 37 years ago and I also grew up in the industry. As far as am concerned, it's absolute crap". Jide Kosoko also commented: "The Nigerian movie industry as far as I'm concerned is not 20 years. If we all truly belong to the same industry, then the industry I belong to is not 20 years. There is a need to tell the world the sincere story of our industry and don't rubbish the pioneers. As far as I am concerned, what they are celebrating is Living in Bondage and not Nollywood

Tunde Kelani stated: "how will Nollywood be celebrating 20 years and I am over 40 years in the industry?"
 President of "Actors Guild of Nigeria" at the time, Ibinabo Fiberesima, admitted that Nollywood is more than 20, but gave what was considered an unconvincing statement on the reason behind the event, stating: "It's about celebrating our own even though Nollywood is more than 20 years. It's been long that people have been celebrating us but right now, we are celebrating ourselves and giving lots back to the society. It's a good step we have taken especially now that the qualities of our movies have improved [/b]


Read and stop behaving like a monkey, I except human beings to be more intelligent than this

Still in the business of legacy theft? Lol!

Of course, common sense suggests that in the spirit of Nigerian unity, if we were to consider all movies ever produced throughout the length and breathe of Nigeria since 1914 as part of nollywood, including the Yorubas non profitable film ventures and models of 60's then we can't say that nollywood started in 90's.

But if we are talking about the current lucrative Igbo model on which nollywood was built on in 90's, then we can as well say that nollywood was founded in 90's because the viability and commercial appeal of the industry was built in 90's by Igbo film makers, and later adopted by all and sundry in the country, including foreigners like Ghanaians!

[b] The Yoruba theatre companies, in the critics words, are small business enterprises operating like others in the Nigerian informal Sector. The conditions of their artistic production affect their relations to the mass media, their structure as organizations and, correspondingly, the structure as plays, and their relations to tradition and modernity.
The company retains its organisational integrity in relation to television, importing its personnel, its production methods, its style, and its subject matter more or less intact into the new medium.
Rather than imposing the uniform stamp of mass culture on these plays, the television seems to be invaded by chunks of the living popular culture that flourishes around it.
Jeyifo himself discovers that the Travelling Theatre practitioners have a strong artistic, guild consciousness – “extensive relationships of cooperation and competition between the companies (have led) to the very strong sense of corporate group identity and vocational distinctiveness that exists among them today” .
This has helped preserve their integrity, but it has also proved a limiting factor: their method of distributing their films “restricts them to an artisinal basis rather than an industrial and international one.
They seldom attempted to master cinematic technique on a fully professional basis, and tended to have rocky relationships with cinema professionals or those perceived as interlopers. [/b]

This is the commercially non viable shit dubious Yorubas are trying to pass off as nollywood, simpl because Ndiigbo share a country with them. Lol!

This Yoruba model wasn't improved by Ndiigbo, the Igbo concept developed on its own, by factoring the needs of their immediate audience and meeting them by a well organized chain of distribution process strategically based in Lagos, Aba and Onitsha.

Ndi ara!

pazienza:


I don't care when Yorubas started making films, for all I care, it could have been in 1880. Do you for once think that Yorubas were the only ones doing films all over Africa at those 60's?

The only thing I care about is the fact that the concept, the brand and the brain on which modern commercially lucrative nollywood was built on, is a model conceived, nurtured and developed by Igbo film makers who were late entrants into movie making in Africa.

And any attempt by Yorubas to lay claim to the nollywood fame by trying to confuse their antiquated commercially non viable film industry of 1960s wilth the Highly commercialized lucrative movie making revolution started by Ndiigbo that took the rest of African continent by storm due to effective marketing and distribution strategies, will always be violently nipped on the bud by Igboists.

Learn to give respect to Ndiigbo, and be grateul for our Midas touch on Nigeria movie Arena.

You are really high on some horse poo. I have tried, at least those who aren't foolish and/or bigoted like you will know the truth igbos are trying to deny. ..and to mention, doing a bad job at it cus the information is available to everybody and all movie lovers like myself know from experience and exposure to the Industry that
1. Yorubas started filmmaking in Nigeria
2. Non igbo contributions have produced better quality

macof:


You are really high on some horse poo. I have tried, at least those who aren't foolish and/or bigoted like you will know the truth igbos are trying to deny. ..and to mention, doing a bad job at it cus the information is available to everybody and all movie lovers like myself know from experience and exposure to the Industry that
1. Yorubas started filmmaking in Nigeria
2. Non igbo contributions have produced better quality

Three facts had been established here:

1. The Yoruba film making industry, though first of its kind in Nigeria, was redundant, lacked both quality and worst of all, was commercially non viable, it impoverished the film makers because of lack of innovation and lack of touch with environmental needs. of the consumers on the part of the Yoruba film makers.

2. The Igbo movie industry emerged in the 90's independent of the Yoruba redundant and commercially non lucrative moribund film making industry, that had acceptance only within the Yoruba enclave.

The Igbo movie industry incorporated audience needs, superior feasibility studies, efficient marketing and distribution strategies to achieve commercial viability and it's adoption of English language and subtitled English for Igbo ones, enabled the industry to make inroads into all parts of Nigeria, Africa, and the Caribbean, setting the stage and standard for future film making and model in sub Sahara Africa, which countries like Ghana have come to benefit heavily from.

3. The Yorubas have an innate agenda to confuse onlookers and erase the Igbo legacy, by trying to juxtapose the Igbo movie revolution of 90's with those of their redundant almost moribund non lucrative film industries of 1960's simply because , their redundant film making industry was coalesced into the vibrant Igbo movie industry to form nollywood for the sake of national unity.

Thanks all for your time.

pazienza:



Three facts had been established here:

1. The Yoruba film making industry, though first of its kind in Nigeria, was redundant, lacked both quality and worst of all, was commercially non viable, it impoverished the film makers because of lack of innovation and lack of touch with environmental needs. of the consumers on the part of the Yoruba film makers.

2. The Igbo movie industry emerged in the 90's independent of the Yoruba redundant and commercially non lucrative moribund film making industry, that had acceptance only within the Yoruba enclave.

The Igbo movie industry incorporated audience needs, superior feasibility studies, efficient marketing and distribution strategies to achieve commercial viability and it's adoption of English language and subtitled English for Igbo ones, enabled the industry to make inroads into all parts of Nigeria, Africa, and the Caribbean, setting the stage and standard for future film making and model in sub Sahara Africa, which countries like Ghana have come to benefit heavily from.

3. The Yorubas have an innate agenda to confuse onlookers and erase the Igbo legacy, by trying to juxtapose the Igbo movie revolution of 90's with those of their redundant almost moribund non lucrative film industries of 1960's simply because , their redundant film making industry was coalesced into the vibrant Igbo movie industry to form nollywood for the sake of national unity.

Thanks all for your time.

You are just uneducated

INDUSTRY - a group of people and activities involved in producing a particular thing, or providing a particular service.

Nollywood is the industry of filmmaking in Nigeria... What Igbos did with "Living in Bondage" was to build on an already existing Industry. .not to create a new industry

macof:



You are just uneducated

INDUSTRY - a group of people and activities involved in producing a particular thing, or providing a particular service.

Nollywood is the industry of filmmaking in Nigeria... What Igbos did with "Living in Bondage" was to build on an already existing Industry. .not to create a new industry

Bla bla bla, you are already spent and out of ideas. Please don't disturb my mention again until you come up with refreshing argument.

Bring your other Yoruba goons if it will help you.

macof:


Smh. I can't believe one human being can be this daft. Read the parts in bold or ask someone more intelligent to explain it to you. Cus I can see that you are not bright, the fact that Kenneth Nnebue was involved in Yoruba movies before living in bondage shows that "living in bondage" entered into an industry already in existence

Yea yea yea but Nollywood is solidly in the hands of Alaba Igbo Businessmen.

bigfrancis21:


Yea yea yea but Nollywood is solidly in the hands of Alaba Igbo Businessmen.

Men who are in the hands of the local market management

You don't think before you post things

Talking about marketing and distribution, the way these ibo paint a picture of having a grip on it makes one wonder where the Olasco Film int'l, Gemini Films, High Waves video mart, Corporate picturez, Okiki films, Adekaz to mention a few are.

What you lot do is produce low quality movies with shitty plot and mass produce on VHS tapes/VCDs and not forgetting your pirate brothers.

Eran ni awon people yi.

http://www.stelladimokokorkus.com/2015/10/ramsey-nouah-and-charles-okpaleke-join.html?m=1
Ramsey Nouah And Charles Okpaleke Join Forces To Remake Nollywood Classic 'Living In Bondage'
It’s been 23 years since Living in Bondage kick started the glorious rise of Nollywood, and now the 1992 game changer is set for a massive reboot.





Entertainment/business mogul Charles Okpaleke of Play Entertainment Network, and award-winning Nollywood star, Ramsey Nouah, are collaborating to remake Kenneth Nnebue’s 1992 classic.

The rights to the movie have been purchased by the duo, and production is set to kick off in 2016.

Speaking on the project, Ramsey says, “There is no way you will mention Nollywood without talking about Living in Bondage. It was the kick-starter for the industry I work in today. Its ability to appeal to everyone irrespective of their religious, cultural and social beliefs made it a huge success. 


It addressed issues that we couldn't talk about then. Its beauty lies in the language used which is understood by a certain part of the country, yet was watched by many. So why not bring back this great movie in our contemporary world."

Living in Bondage is a delight any day. People will still talk about the way Kenneth Okonkwo killed his wife for money rituals and how he was tormented. Don't forget the likes of Kanayo O. Kanayo and Bob Manuel Udokwu who intrigued us with their roles. All these made the movie a great hit and we are sure that the sequel will do better."

Charles is also super-excited about the movie. "It's not often that we visit our roots and bring our past back to life. Living in Bondage may have its flaws then due to the fact that the industry was still growing. However,  bringing those characters back to our present situation will be really interesting and I'm sure it will spark public discourse that will perhaps engineer growth and development in the industry."


stella dimokokorkus at 19:00

macof:


ignorant of Filmmaking?. .its you and the igbo bigots on this thread that are guilty of that

Nothing ur pasted articles can tell me about Nollywood

macof:


Hey boy, if you got nothing intelligent to say why not shut it? I mean not that any of you pro-igbo own nollywood folks have any standard human intelligence but you could have stayed away cus you bring nothing new to the table

Actually, ur "Igwe" movies don't portray Igbo kingship. . Those are just for show on the cameras. .. unlike when an Edo "Enogie" or "Oba" or Yoruba "Oba" is portrayed in a movie. . Often times when I hear Edo chants for their King on a movie advert I run to watch it.. you know how many times I watched the trailer for Iyore, and Invasion 1897?
You just cannot compare the works of Non igbos to that of igbos in terms of portraying culture and passing on education through media


I've never seen Omotola speak igbo ifwords..pplease what movie is it? I will go buy it immediately.

pls for nollywood don't go there is to us igbo like super eagle which ours if u like agree or dont

bigfrancis21:


Not only in Gambia, Jonathan was also hailed 'Igwe' by the people of Namibia when he visited Namibia last year. The effects of Igbo-led Nollywood is indeed far-reaching. Even all the way to the Caribbean. My haitian co-worker knows Igbo words like, 'Igwe', 'Nna anyi' etc.


http://www.talkofnaija.com/politics/people-of-namibia-hail-jonathan-igwe

Exactly, non Nigerians are always talking to me about Igbo culture that they have seen in Igbo led Nollywood. They say Igwe and are intrigued by the whole counsel of elders in those village films as well as the whole wine carrying at weddings. I am proud as an Igbo and also as a Nigerian in that and also when they talk about wizkid, Tiwa, tuface Chidinma etc. I get a sense of pride from it all.

You are pathetic with this comment, comparing joke to Mama G and olu jacobs to Pete Edochie

macof:


Olu Jacobs has taken many of the roles that would ordinarily go to Pete Edochie. I respect Pete Edochie. . But the fact that Olu Jacobs takes his roles in movies, such that Edochie was so frustrated he complained about it publicly some years ago, proves that Olu Jacobs is his superior

Mama G is a village champion please, great actress yes but where Joke Silver has entered, ur mama g can never see

macof:


Sharap you foolish liar. Tunde Kelani is his mentor, Ade Love (Kunle 's father) was Kelani's mentor

You know when people have an opinion about you and just can't wait for the right moment to let you know...:-). Nollywood director Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi aka Mr Hollywood reacts to Kunle Afolayan's tweets

"I almost ignored Kunle Afolayan's useless tweets about Igbos being the only Pirates in Nigeria because to me, Kunle is just an over rated Nollywood film maker. He's not better than Izu Ojukwu, Teco Benson, Obi Emelonye, Chineze Anyaene to mention but a few. 
The secret of Kunle is his DOP Yinka Davies who does everything for him and at the end of the day Kunle will just come and announce 'action'... Give him another local DOP and see if Kunle is worth all the praises his kinsmen showers on him. Kunle should thank Peace Anyiam Osigwe for giving him the platform of AMAA as a pedestal to limelight. Trust me, if Kunle walks the street of Onitsha, Aba, Enugu or any where outside yoruba land, not even one person will recognise him as a celebrity. I will rather worry myself with the Oba's threat to Ndi igbo than spend one second of my time thinking about Kunle's senseless tweets about the Igbos.
Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi (Mr Hollywood)
Linda Ikeji at 10:58 AM

http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2015/04/nollywood-director-ifeanyi-ikpoenyi.html?m=1
280 comments:

macof:


Hey boy, if you got nothing intelligent to say why not shut it? I mean not that any of you pro-igbo own nollywood folks have any standard human intelligence but you could have stayed away cus you bring nothing new to the table

Actually, ur "Igwe" movies don't portray Igbo kingship. . Those are just for show on the cameras. .. unlike when an Edo "Enogie" or "Oba" or Yoruba "Oba" is portrayed in a movie. . Often times when I hear Edo chants for their King on a movie advert I run to watch it.. you know how many times I watched the trailer for Iyore, and Invasion 1897?
You just cannot compare the works of Non igbos to that of igbos in terms of portraying culture and passing on education through media


I've never seen Omotola speak igbo words..pplease what movie is it? I will go buy it immediately.

then u mist be 21 years old watch School drop out

DikeOha882:
You are pathetic with this comment, comparing joke to Mama G and olu jacobs to Pete Edochie

Did you see any lie there? If you think I hold a wrong notion. . kindly put things straight with known facts or shut up

DikeOha882:
You know when people have an opinion about you and just can't wait for the right moment to let you know...:-). Nollywood director Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi aka Mr Hollywood reacts to Kunle Afolayan's tweets

"I almost ignored Kunle Afolayan's useless tweets about Igbos being the only Pirates in Nigeria because to me, Kunle is just an over rated Nollywood film maker. He's not better than Izu Ojukwu, Teco Benson, Obi Emelonye, Chineze Anyaene to mention but a few. 
The secret of Kunle is his DOP Yinka Davies who does everything for him and at the end of the day Kunle will just come and announce 'action'... Give him another local DOP and see if Kunle is worth all the praises his kinsmen showers on him. Kunle should thank Peace Anyiam Osigwe for giving him the platform of AMAA as a pedestal to limelight. Trust me, if Kunle walks the street of Onitsha, Aba, Enugu or any where outside yoruba land, not even one person will recognise him as a celebrity. I will rather worry myself with the Oba's threat to Ndi igbo than spend one second of my time thinking about Kunle's senseless tweets about the Igbos.
Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi (Mr Hollywood)
Linda Ikeji at 10:58 AM

http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2015/04/nollywood-director-ifeanyi-ikpoenyi.html?m=1
280 comments:

Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi that jobless hag? Seriously? Kunle must have ignored the attention seeker.
If Kunle's tweets were senseless and not worth a worry why reply to it? Joblessness?

Just revealing impact the Igbos on him, as for kunle tweets, as a coward he is, he later begged the Igbos else his business will suffer

macof:


Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi that jobless hag? Seriously? Kunle must have ignored the attention seeker.
If Kunle's tweets were senseless and not worth a worry why reply to it? Joblessness?

Igbos Map Out 5 Years Plan To Leave Lagos By 2020

Following the xenophobic attempts, unhealthy social jealousy and the attempt at embarrassing people of the South-East origin residing and doing business in lagos, the following 5 year plan has been drawn up for deliberation by igbos for plans to leave lagos in the same fashion the israelites left Egypt, Savinggracereporters.com reports.

The list which was obtained by Savinggracereporters.com from a Chieftain of Ohanaeze Ndigbo on condition of anonymity, contain 5 strategic point mapped to be carried out on or before the year 2020.

Read Below:

1. Relocation of Igbo Children: The first on the list is the policy of sending igbo children, teens, undergraduate to schools in the east
this would lead to more than 3 million igbo students presently schooling in lagos and neighbouring schools migrating to the east leading to inflow of capital to the east to the tune of N60B
per session at the average rate of N20000 per student.

The resultant effect will be the triggering of new investment in the educational sector never seen since the end of the civil war.

Also investment in stationery manufacturing, construction of school buildings, broadband Internet infrastructure, aviation business, etc will add value to the eastern economy and put a lot of people into employment.

2. Relocation Of Investment: Second on the list is the gradual relocation of igbo investments and capital from the city of lagos back to the East.

This will require utmost care and precision and advise of finance experts.

First to be considered are the financial and stock broking and services companies like banks, insurance etc.

Banks with total igbo ownership or considerable influence like Fidelity, Diamond, UBA, Zenith Access, Union should fuse into a powerful financial alliance and plan on how to relocate to either Enugu, Port Harcourt.

This would lead to relocation or more than 2/3 of the banking business capital to the east. The relocation will see to the movement of Nigeria’s financial capital to port Harcourt where they will be the major player as these banks form the core of Nigeria systemic banks .

Also the movement of financial services companies which would follow this move will lead to stock broking firms, insurance firm, accounting and auditing companies boosting the economy of the
east.

3. Consolidated Movement Of Nollywood To Enugu: The movie industry which igbos founded single
handedly and built to the third largest film industry in the world should without delay be moved to enugu .

Movies must now be made, shot, produced in Enugu.

Enugu government collaboration will be needed in building theme parks and allocations of land or zone for the sighting of film studio and film or motion picture schools.

The relocation of Nigerian music industry, the industry which is controlled by igbos like Don jazzy,
P-square, Flavor ,Nigga Raw ,J martins etc with nollywood will form the largest entertainment capital in Africa. This relocation will be followed up by recording companies

4. Relocation Of The Trading Empire In Alaba, Ladipo etc: The huge trading empire which has been under attack by vultures who often impose arbitrary taxes, annual registration fees and babaloja need to be
relocated to the safe cities in Aba and Onitsha.

This would require making the river niger navigable, the deep sea port in Akwa ibom completed and a rail link from Akwa Ibom to Aba and Onitsha.

The relocation will lead to a more than N10 billion exchanging hands on daily basis in Aba and Onitsha

5. Relocation Of The Oil And Gas Industry To Niger Delta: Firstly this is for international oil and gas
companies that originally had their head quarters in Niger Delta until 1969 when some roques with decree relocated the headquarters to lagos in the worst form of robbery and deprivation ever known
to man.

NOLLYWOOD REMAINS A LEGACY OF NDIGBO

The Nigeria film industry has different associations from different geo political zones of the country. There is the English language industry, Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) which has its main production center in Lagos and is dominated by people from the south east of Nigeria. While the language used is English, the stories in these films mostly reflect the ideology of the Igbo people of the region. The second industry is much, much older, and consists of the indigenous Yoruba language movies. This can be traced back to the Nigerian feature film industry of the 60’s and 70’s, up until the economic downturn meant that people could no longer afford to produce feature films anymore and started making videos instead. The Yoruba movie industry has an association called Association of Nigerian Theater-Arts Practioners (ANTP).

Then you have another industry in the Northern part of the country now known as Kannywood. By the Hausa population, it has a lot of Islamic influences. There are also pockets of smaller production, like in the south around the Niger Delta. These are also indigenous, mainly made in the Edo language. Each of these has its own associations for the industry professionals. The meeting point is supposed to be the Motion Picture Council of Nigeria, in which all the different areas are represented for the purpose of regulating the industry and lobbying the government but nothing seems to be happening.

There is no National body that adequately represents the industry and which all the associations are answerable to. The Guild, AGN is supposed to be the umbrella body of all the associations but it has been polarized. There can be no one Nollywood unless a board is created with the leaders of all the associations represented in all major decisions making to create a level playing ground.

This writer, of Yoruba origin, confirms that English-speaking Igbo-led Nollywood is a legacy of Ndigbo. He clearly makes a difference between the distinctions - English Speaking-Igbo Led, Yoruba, Hausa, Edo etc. In the Nigerian Film Industry, we have the Actors Guild of Nigeria in charge of Nollywood proper and the Association of Nigerian Theater-Arts Practitioners (ANTP) in charge of Yoruba movies. While the AGN is in charge of the English and Igbo language movies, ANTP handles the Yoruba movie productions. Like I explained before, the case can be likened to 2 companies who started at different times, one before the other however the latter company is more successful than the earlier one. A merger of these 2 companies has seen the so-called imposition of the older one on the younger one all in the name of 'birthright'. Nollywood at 20 was recently celebrated in 2013, marking the beginning of the Igbo-led Nollywood industry with Living in Bondage. The Nigerian Film Industry can use 'Cinema of Nigeria' or whatsoever to collectively refer to all Nigerian film industries, however, Nollywood in particular, the section of Nigeria's film industry as seen from the outside world, belongs to the Igbos.

http://www.360nobs.com/2013/09/nollywood-at-20-half-baked-idea-words-by-seun-apara/