N is for Nigeria, for Nollywood, and for Netflix

(By Edwin Okolo) - It took them long enough but Netflix Naija is finally here 

The next big battle for the future of media is the streaming wars. Its a war already 30 years in the making starting in the US in the early 90’s with then video giant Blockbuster and relatively new upstart, Netflix. 30 years later, almost every major media network playing in both traditional and digital spaces launching their own streaming services as a way to profit off their content and corner their own niche of the market.

Even Nigerian independent studios are launching streaming platforms. There is Ebony Life On, Linda Ikeji TV and Scene One Productions from Funke Akindele. With Nigeria’s thriving entertainment industry and the proliferation of Nigerian-centric film and television content, it was only a matter of time before Netflix set its sights on the country. Genevieve Nnaji’s Lionheart certainly had something to do with that. It was the first African independent film project bought by Netflix for an exclusive wide release for a rumoured 3 million dollars. Netflix must have recouped the investment because since they have steadily bought the streaming rights for a number of high profile Nigerian films and shows, much of which will make the foundational content for Netflix Naija.

Of Lionheart, Oscars Disqualification, and National Identity Crisis

(By Daniel Chukwuemeka) – The disqualification of Genevieve Nnaji's Lion Heart from Oscar's Best International Film Award category is a very controversial topic. It'll certainly attract the usual discourse about colonialism and debate around nationalism and identity. In all, however, I think that Americans are indirectly telling us, "go home, Nigerians, and resolve your identity crisis. Go home and think, and act."

English is our official language, but if you watched Lion Heart, did you see the part where Pete Edochie is fuming before his prospective Hausa in-law? The Hausa man mutters some words in Hausa without knowing that Pete Edochie understands the language. Pete joins him in Hausa and speaks it away at the amazement and excitement of the Hausa man. That alone seals both their business and family connections.

             I said it in a post yesterday. We had work to do, but failed to do it. Noah Webster jnr. woke up one morning and said that God came to him in a dream and ordered him to write a dictionary of American English.

Nollywood Goes to Oscars with Lionheart

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.

Nollywood Takes Over Hollywood, Celebrates Feat

L-R: Ose Oyamendan (2nd L), Kemi Adetiba, and Banky W

(By Oluwagbemiga Asuelimen) - The Weekend Nollywood took over Hollywood

          When you live in Los Angeles, you often feel you have seen everything. You have most likely gone through an earthquake or two. You have seen men become women and women become men. You have seen stars rise and fall. You have eaten food you can not even pronounce. You have been on a roller coaster through life and, sometimes, you do not know what is real and what is make belief.

Last week, the city saw what it had not seen before, not in this light. Nigeria was in town.

“We’re gonna rock this town the way it’s not been rocked in a long time,” beamed Nigerian-American filmmaker Ose Oyamendan as he strolled in his Ankara shirt under the mild afternoon sun into a meeting with the big wigs at The Egyptian Theatre on Tuesday afternoon.

A few hours later, the online version of the prestigious Los Angeles Times spilled the beans on the unsuspecting city when it announced, “Watch Out Hollywood, Nollywood is coming to town”. This is the closest you get to a cultural coup. Nigeria, long bashed in the media for scandals, corruption and fraud, was getting a public rebranding, thanks to the Nollywood In Hollywood event.

          The headline lit up social media. Kemi Adetiba, the queen of Nigeria’s box office whose film, KING OF BOYS, was selected for screening posted a blurb of the newspaper headline on her Instagram page with a simple line, “Hey mommy… Hey daddy… Guess who just got featured in the @latimes”. Good news must travel fast. Within an hour, the news had been viewed or shared over a million times on social media. It would expand to over ten million in the next few days.

Lionheart: A Movie for Business and Film Schools

(By Toni Kan) - Three years after her first award winning feature film, Road to Yesterday, Nollywood screen goddess, Genevieve Nnaji has returned with her sophomore feature, Lionheart starring a slew of Nollywood greats – Pete Edochie, Onyeka Onwenu, Nkem owoh, Chika Okpala aka Zebrudaya, Kanayo O Kanayo as well as music star Phyno and award winning young actress, Jemima Osunde.

The film which was rejected by a section of film distributors in Nigeria made its worldwide debut on Netflix on Friday January 4, 2019.
My friend and brother, Wilfred Okiche has described Lionheart as “the feel good movie of the year” and he is correct but there is a lot he did not say.
            Genevieve Nnaji teaming up with Ishaya Bako (who directed Road to Yesterday) and Chinny Onwugbuenu has given us a very important movie. Lionheart, as its title suggests, is that rare and brave thing, a stereotype defying movie, a business primer and a very, very wise movie.
            Kudos must be given to the writers – Genevieve Nnaji, Chinny Onwugbuenu, CJ Obasi, Ishaya Bako and Emil Garba – for providing a unifying vision around the original idea.
            I have described Lionheart as an important movie because it speaks to the future in an eloquent voice.

Lionheart: Lessons for an Impressed Fan

Genevieve Nnaji and Nkem Owoh

(By Nkechi Bianze) - I watched #LionHeart on Netflix yesterday.

The movie is a breath of fresh air. Away from the usual stale boring storyline.

1. The uncle came to actually contribute his bit to saving the company. He didn't come to kill the brother and take over the company and money.

2. Pete Edochie didn't die suddenly by a heart attack or something. He fell ill and got back on his feet.

3. Pete Edochie and his wife recognized the strengths of their children. The son wasn't victimized for choosing not to manage the family business. He was allowed to follow his own dream of a music career. He wasn't taunted like a lost soul or prodigal son as a result of his choice.
Genevieve, even as a woman was given the freedom to manage the family business and source of wealth. There was no sexism in this case like most other Nollywood movies would have shoved down our throats.

4. There was no family feud. Sister inlaw and brother inlaw weren't fighting their brother's wife. Son wasn't trying to claim he is the man and in charge of the family wealth, either by crook or real.

5. The storyline is simple yet engaging. It was all about saving a drowning family business. The struggles were realistic, and the journey to finally being able to save Lionheart was quite realistic too.
A Billion Naira didn't suddenly appear from nowhere for them to clear their debt. They fought, tried and tried, and they triumphed.

Lionheart: Of Family, Culture, and Industry

The Obiagus

(By Obianuju Okafor) - Enugu takes centre stage in Genevieve Nnaji’s directorial debut with lighting and colouring made to reflect the mood and feel of the town. It is one of the things that Lionheart gets right from its beginning and the first sign that the audience is about to get a film that mixes the technical improvements that have attended more recent Nollywood releases with a more old school, locally flavoured, story, and (this bears stating right of the bat) superb, superb acting.

Adaeze is an adept and excellent right hand for her father in the bus transport empire that he has built. When his health is severely threatened, Adaeze’s assumption that she will be appointed as the acting leader is disappointed by the arrival of her uncle who is then appointed in her place, and whose presence initially irks her. Still, the two band together to solve a problem left by her father and compounded by the owner of a rival transport company, who hopes to make a gain from their troubles. Ada slowly has her perspective changed as she interacts more with her uncle and comes to the end of her own rope.

Lionheart is a slowburn, walking leisurely through every occurrence even when a clock is introduced to heighten the stakes. Genevieve Nnaji is a great lead as Adaeze giving a great and completely unforced performance and leaving room enough for the roster of other veterans to shine.

#Lionheart and the Metaphor of the Possible

Adanna and her uncle, Godswill

(By Pius Adesanmi) - NIGERIA is notorious for her belief in the indestructibility of a project that everybody purports to hate, dislike, disavow or disown. Somewhere in the core of the Nigerian psyche lies the belief that we are the only people on earth whose country will always survive our unquenchable hate, bitterness, and hostility expressed along our three most intractable fault lines: ethnicity, faith, and political affiliation, worsened by the democracy of social media and the conquest of that space by millennials – Nigeria’s most populous demographic – who no dey look Uche face.

However, I do not believe that Nigeria could have survived another week of hatredvaganza and the attendant cursefest that has happened upon us because of the presidential election season had art and the artist not intervened this week to do what they have done for humanity and society since the beginning of time: provide instrumental catharsis and place in front of  a society on the brink of implosion through self-inflicted injuries a mirror showing pathways of the possible.

That is the symbolic role that Nigeria’s cultural icon, Genevieve Nnaji, played this week with the release of her new movie, #Lionheart, on Netflix. I do not intend to explore the plot of the movie here. Go and watch it like millions of Nigerians have already done. When you are done watching it, join the commentariat on social media who have been busy dissecting scenes, characters, and other elements of the movie in a moment of national cultural jouissance that has united home and diaspora. My intervention is necessitated by a pattern of misses I have noticed so far in the social media commentary.

Netflix: What's in it for Nollywood?

What Netflix’s involvement in Nigeria’s massive film industry really means

(By Alessandro Jedlowski) - Big investors seem to be mainly interested in Nollywood's already established popularity with African audiences

Global streaming service Netflix set its eyes a few years ago on Nigeria’s film industry, better known as Nollywood. Distribution of Nigerian movies on Netflix started around 2015. At the time the American giant bought the rights of blockbusters such as Kunle Afolayan’s October 1st, Biyi Bandele’s Fifty and several others, after they had already been distributed in Nigerian cinemas.

          During the Toronto International Film Festival 2018, Netflix announced the acquisition of worldwide exclusive distribution rights for Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji’s debut film as director, the comedy Lionheart. The film marked the first Netflix original film from Nigeria. Many saw this as the beginning of a new era in the relationship between one of the world largest streaming platforms and Africa’s most prolific film industry.

Genevieve Nnaji: Twenty Years In Nollywood

"As 2018 comes to an end, I mark 20 years in the art of film making. I’m grateful for my life, journey, and growth thus far. I’m happy I could celebrate with you through a product that embodied all of me, mentally and spiritually; for all of your pleasure. May 2019 be our best year yet. 🎉Happy New Year! ❤️"

Genevieve Nnaji

Genevieve Nnaji, Lionheart, & Good Old Nollywood

Lionheart, a Genevieve Nnaji film, a true Nigerian home video-styled film, has captured the world—no mende-mende added, just same old simple Nigerian Enugu-based Nollywood’s beautifully told story by same old Nollywood veterans – Pete Edochie, Onyeka Onwenu, Nkem Owoh (I mean the same old Osuofia, nothing added), Ngozi Ezeonu, Zebrudaya, Kanayo O. Kanayo and loads of the same old Nollywood faces based in Enugu. And they made it to the international stage, in a jammed cinema hall in the big city of Toronto, with a mixed audience, seventy-five percent whites. The audience laughed when necessary, cried when necessary, and at the end everyone agreed unanimously that they all thoroughly enjoyed the truly made-in-Nigeria movie. Great sound, beautiful pictures, and of course fast paced cutting that really did the magic. Like I said during the third screening of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), this is our style. Thanking Genevieve for her audacity in sustaining our original story pattern and presenting it just as raw as we always did before they [the oversabis] came and told us we were doing nonsense, that the foreign markets and distributors wouldn't touch us with a ten-mile pole. Now I can say, dear oversabis, Genevieve Nnaji's Obiagu: Lionheart has proven you all wrong. Connections and those she knows may have played a part in securing her much celebrated deal with Netflix, but my joy is that it’s Nollywood that was bought and that gives me so much joy.

Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen

Film Director/Producer