Nollywood, Alaba Markerters, and New Nollywood

(By Andrew Rice) - “Most of [Nollywood] movies … are awful, marred by slapdash production, melodramatic acting and ludicrous plots. [Kunle] Afolayan, who is 37, is one of a group of upstart directors trying to transcend those rote formulas and low expectations. His breakthrough film, the 2009 thriller “The Figurine,” was an aesthetic leap: ... it announced the arrival of a swaggering talent keen to upset an immature industry. Unlike most Nollywood fare, “The Figurine” was released in actual theaters, not on cheap discs, playing to packed houses next to Hollywood features. “Many observers,” Jonathan Haynes, a scholar of Nollywood, recently wrote, “have been waiting a long time for this kind of filmmaking, which can take its place in the international arena proudly and on equal terms.” …

The economic realities of African filmmaking conspire against an improvement in quality. The consumer base is huge — there are more than a billion Africans, [200] million of them in Nigeria alone. But access to those buyers is controlled by the clannish merchants who congregate on the outskirts of Lagos at the Alaba International Market, the distribution hub of the African movie business. …

Nollywood’s bawdy humor — or fright or fantasy — appeals to a public seeking escape from depressing living conditions. The industry itself was born out of economic desperation during the early 1990s, a period of military dictatorship, low prices for Nigeria’s oil and Western-mandated “structural adjustment” of its economy. Actors and cameramen were out of work because of budget cuts at the national television station. Movie theaters were closed because no one wanted to venture into the dangerous streets at night.

Ajofia Nnewi: Ana Were Were

"Sitting on a Man": Aba Women's War and Igbo Women's Strategy

Aba Women, early 20th century

"A group of Igbo women in 1929 rose up as a unitary women would and with one voice and a single-mindedness of purpose waged war against the oppressive measures put in place by the conquering British colonial government. Through the three arms of the administration ... the British administration's District Officer (D. O.), the Church (the clergy) and the School (teachers) and the Court (judges), incessantly taxed the poor. This resulted in the de facto removal of the husbands from their homes to work in the cash-crop farms to support the British economy. Back in Europe, it was the era of industrial revolution and, in effect, Igbo men slaved on their lands as laborers working for their masters and paid taxes from whatever little they earned, leaving them weak, spent and with not enough to take care of their families. Under the circumstances, they were often unable to perform their conjugal obligations with their spouses in their matrimonial homes. On the fateful day in 1929, the Igbo women of Aba marched on government hill and stoned the District Officer. He was forced to call reinforcements, and when they came they too were again stoned by the women. The enraged women would not back down or leave government hill until their demands were met. The people called it the Igbo Women's 'War' but the British called it the Igbo Women's 'Riot.'
          What was unclear at the time was that what took place between the women and the ruling colonial power was a strategy, albeit on a small scale, which many an Igbo woman would usually employ to bend a recalcitrant husband for dereliction of duties and obligations to wife and family. They call it 'sitting on a man.' Therefore, the Aba women at war with the British had employed the Igbo women's radical strategy of 'sitting on a man' when aggrieved. Such a recalcitrant woman would 'sit' on her abusive husband's homestead, refusing to cooperate with food preparation, sex and emotional company until her husband promised to change his ways. Sometimes, it was a group of wives that 'sat' on their offending men."

Ada Uzoamaka Azodo, 2019, 18-19

"Di-Feminism: Valorizing the Indigenous Igbo Concept of 'Agunwanyi,'" in African Feminisms in the Global Arena: Novel Perspectives on Gender, Class, Ethnicity, and Race, ed. Ada Uzoamaka Azodo

Nollywood Actors Fans Will Forever Love

(By Adunni Amodeni) - Ten Talented Nollywood Actors We Will Never Stop Loving

Some Nollywood stars who quit acting in the 90s made our childhood days memorable and lit, while some are still around entertaining their loyal fans. Their roles in classic movies helped set the pace for the industry we’ve come to love dearly today.

These great actors have been involved in one scandal or another and some have managed to remain scandal free. Amidst their endless dramas, their fans still can’t bear not seeing them on their TV screens. They also look out for their movies either on DVD or in the cinemas.

Legit.ng has come up with a list of Nollywood actors we will never stop loving:

LADIES:

 1. Genevieve Nnaji:

The world can never get enough of talented Nollywood actress, Genevieve Nnaji. The 39-year-old diva is also a movie producer, director, screenwriter and former model. She reportedly welcomed her first child at the age of 16 and did not let that affect her studies or movie career. Having joined the industry in her teenage years, the delectable actress has featured in countless movies both local and international.

Reporting Nollywood from Australia

(By Carol Rääbus) - Nollywood is huge — and there's never been a better time to check it out

           How many Nigerian films or TV shows have you watched?

Chances are, if most of what you watch is what's available in cinemas and on Australian broadcast TV, you haven't seen any — despite the fact Nigeria is the second largest producer of film in the world after Hollywood.

But that could be about to change as Nollywood — as the Nigerian film industry is colloquially known — films hit our small screens as streaming services tune in to the appetite for more diverse stories.

While films have been made in Nigeria for as long as people have been making films, the term Nollywood started to be used in the early 2000s as Nigeria began to really ramp-up its film production.

In the early 2000s, Nollywood made a name for itself with quickly made films with often low-production values, which were distributed on burned DVDs to be more affordable and accessible than the country's few movie theatres.

These days Nollywood is still pumping out an impressive volume of films with more than 1,000 titles released each year, and is also producing films with high production values and strong storylines that have captured Netflix's attention.

Academics Research Corruption Using Nollywood

(By Yomi Kazeem) - The Nollywood Movie Experiment to Research Nigerians’ Anti-corruption Behavior

The popularity of Nigeria’s Nollywood movie industry—the world’s second largest by volume—was covertly deployed for a social cause five years ago.

Researchers from Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) collaborated to commission a feature film to test local habits on reporting corruption. The research for the movie, which was funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and an anonymous donor, was approved by the Princeton Institutional Review Board.

Given the popularity of the local movie industry and the prevalence of corruption in Nigeria, the researchers looked to study how Nigerians report corruption using the high-profile actors to model behavior.

            Nigeria’s corruption problems are well-documented with a landmark survey two years capturing the scale of corruption especially among public officers. Despite his well-publicized anti-corruption stance and message in office, Nigeria’s president Buhari has struggled to definitely address the problem with his administration suffering corruption-related scandals of its own.

Female Kings Among the Yoruba

(By Sulaiman Salaw-udeen) – The Many Female “Kings” of Ekiti

Yoruba tradition precludes princesses from becoming kings, but many of them have been installed regents or stop-gap kings in many towns and cities across Southwest Nigeria.

Like the conventional monarchs, they often come decked in traditional Agbada, Buba and Sokoto and wear round-headed caps festooned in attractive designs. They wield the familiar royal horsetail and are normally graced with obeisance by humble and adoring subjects who call them ‘Kabiyesi’, a Yoruba word for ‘Unquestionable’.

But their often rotund faces and other feminine features do always set them apart from the male world which their looks and their relations with male chiefs gave them away as. They are females and are fleeting occupiers of the exalted throne of a traditional ruler or Oba across towns and communities in Ekiti. They carry the common title of regents.