Lights, camera...budget action! Image courtesy 'This Is Nollywood'
If you said Hollywood, that’s a dated answer. America’s movie industry used to be the second largest in the world — until an unlikely contender turned up from…Nigeria!
India remains the world’s leading film producer but Nigeria is closing the gap after overtaking the United States for second place, according to a global cinema survey conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).
Bollywood produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006 compared to 872 productions (in video format) from Nigeria’s film industry, commonly referred to as Nollywood. In contrast, the United States produced 485 major films.
The three heavyweights were followed by eight countries that produced more than 100 films: Japan (417), China (330), France (203), Germany (174), Spain (150), Italy (116), South Korea (110) and the United Kingdom (104).
Nigerian filmmakers rely on video instead of film to reduce production costs. And as the survey points out, Nigeria has virtually no formal cinemas. About 99% of screenings occur in informal settings, such as “home theatre”.
This is Nollywood
Nollywood’s rising has been chronicled in a 2007 documentary by Franco Sacchi and Robert Caputo. Called This is Nollywood, it tells the story of the Nigerian film industry – a revolution enabling Africans with few resources to tell African stories to African audiences. Despite all odds, Nigerian directors produce between 500 and 1,000 movies a year. The disks sell wildly all over the continent – Nollywood actors have become stars from Ghana to Zambia.
Says Zambia-born director Franco Sacchi: “When I first read about Nigerian directors producing hundreds of feature-length films with digital cameras, a week, and a few thousand dollars, I found the subject irresistible. Here was not only a rare positive story about Africa, but one that embodied the egalitarian promise of digital technology—anybody can make a movie. And Nollywood was virtually unknown.”
This is Nollywood takes us behind the sets and scenes in one Nigerian movie being made on the cheap — and fast. Acclaimed director Bond Emeruwa sets out to make a feature-length action film in just nine days. Armed only with a digital camera, two lights, and about $20,000, Bond faces challenges unimaginable in Hollywood and Bollywood.
Emeruwa says: “We are telling our own stories in our own way, our Nigerian way, African way. I cannot tell the white man’s story. I don’t know what his story is all about. He tells me his story in his movies. I want him to see my stories too.”
Watch This is Nollywood: Movie Trailer
I then came across this TED Talk by Franco Sacchi, where he takes us through Nollywood (at the time he gave his talk, the world’s third largest and now second only to Bollywood). He talks about ‘guerrilla film-making’ and brilliance under pressure from crews that can shoot a full-length feature in a week.
Welcome to Nollywood is another 2007 documentary film, directed by Jamie Meltzer, that looked at the Nigerian film industry. Its findings were similar to those of This is Nollywood. Traveling to the country’s chaotic capitol, Lagos, Meltzer spent ten weeks following three of Nigeria’s hottest directors, each different in personality and style, as they shot their films about love, betrayal, war, and the supernatural.
At around US$250 million per year (and rising), Nollywood’s capital outlay is far below that of Hollywood and Bollywood. For perspective, that’s a bit less than what it cost to make Spiderman 3 in 2007 (budget: US$ 258 million) — the second most expensive film made. See list of most expensive Hollywood films.
Telling their own stories....
As Colin Freeman wrote in the Daily Telegraph, UK: “While the likes of Serpent in Paradise and Evil Finger may not be as slick as their Hollywood counterparts, they offer one thing that the likes of George Clooney and Brad Pitt can never provide: characters and stories with which an African audience can identify.”
And according to The Economist, it all started in 1992, when Kenneth Nnebue, a Nigerian trader based in Onitsha, was trying to sell a large stock of blank videocassettes he had bought from Taiwan. He decided that they would sell better with something recorded on them, so he shot a film called “Living in Bondage” about a man who achieves power and wealth by killing his wife in a ritualistic murder, only to repent later when she haunts him. The film sold more than 750,000 copies, and prompted legions of imitators.
The rest, as they say, is now Nollywood history.
Read my August 2007 blog post: “If we don’t tell our stories, no one else will”
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 
15 July 2009 at 7:44 am
Home video efforts made on $20,ooo a piece is not cinema by any meaning of that term. Dont insult Hollywood and Bollywood by comparing these little african videos with mainstream cinema.
23 July 2009 at 8:22 am
I am very interested in your observations and the resulting comments. As a footnote I’d like to add that, while the world may not widely and readily see the significance of Nollywood’s impact, one should look further a field to sub-saharan Africa. The film industry in Africa is growing by leaps and bounds all thanks to Nollywood’s “can-do-it” inspiration. In Kenya for example, independent film making is on the rise with the emergence of what is now locally known as “Riverwood”. Local film making is gaining such a following that the government in response to this phenomenon, zero rated import tax on film and film making equipment in this year’s national budget in order to offer growth incentive to the local film making industry.
If I may break it down completely, one of the opportunities afforded by such actions is that it makes vital in-roads for the production of better quality and higher standards in media and film production due to availability and affordability of professional “production inputs” such as cameras, lights, sound kits, edit software etc. This means Africa’s potential to bring quality media products to the market is taking shape.
Again, one only needs to realize what huge potential Africa’s market holds.As the world’s leading continent that grows younger and younger in population,( i.e. high birthrates) statistics reveal that soon Africa’s population in a matter of years will reach the 900 million mark.(Read Vijay Mahajan’s book, Africa Rising) ) Such numbers cannot possibly be ignored! Think India and China who’ve aptly proved this point to the West!
Imagine the market potential for African film to ready-made youthful African audiences!!!! Anyone who is currently plugged in to global trends, only needs to discard what you succinctly referred to as “dated” mindsets and realize that the tide has irrevocably turned.
24 July 2009 at 12:12 am
Marion,
Many thanks for your detailed reply, full of insights. I wrote the blogpost with some hesitation as I don’t at all claim to be familiar with Africa’s media and cultural landscape. But I felt it was a ‘good news’ story that resonates strongly with the theme of this blog, how moving images move people.
Let the likes of Big M (commenting above) dismiss Nollywood and what it signifies. This world is big enough for everyone, and there are unmet cultural needs that neither Bollywood nor Hollywood would care to fill, or can realistically fill. My hope is that digital technologies, innovation and creativity would spark off similar cultural revolutions across Africa, Asia and Latin America!
25 July 2009 at 7:48 am
Nalaka:
I have all my chips bet on digital technology, innovation and creativity sparking off a cultural revolution across Africa. You mentioned something about being proficient in connecting dots. I can identify with that….., i connect these dots to an idea that is gaining ground called “creative economies” I believe there is massive potential for Africa to make great capital of creative industries by formalizing her industries (e.g. media and film) and having a more positive, proactive and competitive market strategy. This is the whole premise of enterprises such as Sojourner which exist to help our creative industry in film grow and generate meaningful livelihoods for its stakeholders. Big Dreams Strange Places!
9 October 2009 at 10:30 am
I’ve linked this blogpost to my article on successful africans in film: http://celebrities.suite101.com/article.cfm/black_pioneers_of_film_and_television
Thanks so much for all the information you’ve provided here.
Kimberly
1 November 2009 at 5:58 pm
very cool and informative.
26 December 2009 at 7:28 pm
nice job!!
10 January 2010 at 2:26 am
—Hey! -who’s going to be the first in Hollywood
to break ranks and come out about their industry’s
decades long collusions with the most awesomely
genocidal regime in history —across the Pacific?
I mean, covering up the murder of 70 million
—in ‘peacetime’ has got to be taking its toll.
—That’s right —70,000,000
Enjoy the movies folks —cause people are dying
for them —by the several tens of millions…
30 July 2010 at 6:34 pm
I believe Nollywood film industry is actually helping the African film industry. It helps Nigerian writers and directors tell our own stories from our own point of view and not Hollywood’s point of view. The quality is also getting better and will soon catch up to international standards. Take this new Nollywood film “Anchor Baby” for instance. It was written and directed by a Nigerian director Lonzo Nzekwe and the lead actress is also a Nigeria actress Omoni Oboli. The picture quality is on the same standard as most films shot in Hollywood. Here’s a link to their trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yx_kiBOZDA
7 June 2011 at 10:34 pm
Please, I would like to get the cost of nollywood movie production, series movie, cost of nollywood actors and others necessary, thanks