Celebrating Nollywood at 20

The naysayers had predicted its early demise and called it “a flash in the pan.” But twenty years on, instead of a requiem, the whole world sings triumphant alleluia tunes. Nollywood has grown to become the most dominant and accessible expression of contemporary Nigerian popular culture. 

It tells Nigerian stories, with Nigerian voices, to Nigerian (and exponentially growing transnational, global) audience. Its reach is as expansive as its influence, with its films and narratives extending across the African continent and far beyond. Its video films and the discourses they generate have become so key to Nigeria’s and Africa’s self-representation that it is difficult to understand contemporary Africa and its place in the world without recourse to them.

In 2009 the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ranked Nollywood the second largest film industry in the world, after Bollywood. In addition to being a multibillion naira (and dollar) industry, generating myriad spin-off subsector businesses, and employing hundreds of thousands of labor, Nollywood has also studded the Africa galaxy with stars too numerous to count. 

So much for an industry that started from chanced business opportunities taken advantage of by a group of men (who unfortunately are often denigrated as illiterates) with no basic training or education in film production.

As the curtains come down on its twentieth anniversary celebrations in Nigeria and across the world, here’s raising the glasses and wishing Nollywood many more scores of colorful and impactful existence.