Book Review: Trends in Nollywood

Source: amazon.com

(ThisDay)--My first contact with a Nigerian movie was in 1977. I grew up near a Cinema Hall and the Urban Community School I attended was also located behind the Central Cinema in Abakaliki. The movies trending then were foreign movies like: Enter the Dragon, Game of Death, Heroes Two, Blacula, Saturday Night Fever, Longest Day, One Arm Boxer, and The Ten Gladiators amongst others.

Early in the morning, we used to deploy the promotional signpost “Showing Tonite” at strategic locations which accounted for our gate fees. It was then surprising to see on the coming attraction promo board a Nigerian movie titled “Bisi Daughter of the River” starring Patti Boulaye, a Nigerian celebrity who we had watched severally on LUX soap commercials courtesy of the Lever Brothers’ market activation team at Hosanna hill. 

I have journeyed down memory lane to connect with the title of this book review, which is all about trends. But first, what is a trend? It is a gradual change or development that produces a particular result. As the human society develops, trends emerge. Life evolves in diverse ramifications, creating trendy patterns at every point in time.

Nollywood Attracts Educated Audiences

Rita Dominic; Photo source: RitaDominicOfficial/Facebook

(University World News) Nollywood, Nigeria’s vibrant film industry, has come of age by attracting tertiary educated audiences and can be used effectively as an integration tool in West Africa and beyond, says Dr Oluyemi Oyenike Fayomi, a senior lecturer at Covenant University in Nigeria.

Addressing more than 500 delegates at the 14th General Assembly of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa – CODESRIA – held in Dakar from June 8-12, Fayomi said Nollywood productions were rapidly gaining continental acceptance.

“Nollywood video productions are not just providing entertainment to residents of mega urban slums such as Makoko in Lagos or Kibera in Nairobi, but have penetrated gated communities of highly educated people in Sub-Saharan Africa and the African diaspora.”

A success story

It is hard to avoid Nigerian films in Africa, as they have defied the concept of the developed world cinema where feature films and high-end documentaries are screened in theatres. Nollywood filmmakers rely heavily on videos that are screened in informal settings such as buses, food kiosks, hotels and restaurants, and street and home theatres.

Nollywood: A Resource That Needs Control

Resource Control has become an important political and economic lexicon in modern geo political realities. In the emerging economies of the world, most especially in Africa, resource control has accounted for numerous armed conflicts, political instability, and economic stagnation.

Resources in emerging economies like Nigeria are primarily ascribed to natural & physical properties like oil and gas, agricultural products, gold, diamond and like products that are discoverable fro under the bowels of the earth.

The attraction to tangible properties like oil, commonly called the “black gold” in Nigeria has resulted in the neglect of other resources which could compete, if not out-rank oil in terms of wealth generation. Intellectual property rights are resources that Nigerians have neglected or unaware of as a property. It is an intangible property that has generated economic growth and wealth in counties like United States, India, Japan, France and United Kingdom. In the United States, Hollywood has contributed  immensely to the nation’s GDP. In India, Bollywood has contributed greatly to the nations economy. It is the strength of its intellectual property  regime that has propel these entertainment capitals of the world to become economic and cultural model, that most of the world desire to emulate. The copyrights, patent, trademark & publicity rights policies of these countries have been a motivating factor for the economic growth of their entertainment industry.

Culture: Key to Sustainable Development

The International Congress "Culture: Key to Sustainable Development" was held in Hangzhou (China) from 15 May to 17 May 2013. This was the first International Congress specifically focusing on the linkages between culture and sustainable development organized by UNESCO since the Stockholm Conference in 1998.  As such, the Congress provided the very first global forum to discuss the role of culture in sustainable development in view of the post-2015 development framework, with participation of the global community and the major international stakeholders.

While culture was absent from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), integrating the cultural dimension into actions and goals in achieving sustainable development is an approach that is making its way on the international level. The Outcome document of MDG Summit, “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium Development Goals” (2010), emphasized the importance of culture for development and its contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Furthermore, the trend toward integrating culture into UN development policies is particularly visible at the level of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). Indeed, by January 2012, culture was included in 70% of UNDAF work plans worldwide. These figures are the result of an increasingly positive trend since the late 1990s, when only about 30% of UNDAFs included cultural entries.

Feature Film Languages and Cultural Diversity

Language of production in feature films, 2011

What do the offerings of the local cinema hall or multiplex tell us about cultural diversity in the 21^st century? According to new data from the UIS, the choices movie-goers make at the box office, as well as the language of film production, can provide a glimpse of the diversity of one of the most vibrant cultural industries.

At one end of the spectrum lies India, home of the world’s most prolific film industry, but no single language dominates it. In 2011, 16% of films were produced in Hindi. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Bengali held the remaining shares, making India the most diverse country for language of production.

In South Africa, English was the dominant language (59%), followed by Afrikaner (32%), while African languages such as Zulu represented only 5% of production.

The Arab States and sub-Saharan African regions showed the least language diversity in film production. However, this is partly due to the lack of data about movies released on DVD. In Nigeria 75% of films are produced in local languages, such as Yoruba, Hausa and Bini.