(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.
