Contemporary History of African Film (A Case Study of Nigeria)

There is nothing in life that exists without a traceable beginning, which comes gradually, or at breathless pace, before attaining the proposed stage of recognition. Everything in life has its ‘early yesterdays’, whether sour or rosy. Thus, categorically, Nigerian (rapidly growing) cinematography industry has its own story to tell.

However, it would be a half-done task to hastily bring Nollywood to the shore without sailing the boat of the history of African film making. First things first!

                                                      TARZAN (1935)

 During the non-competitive colonial era, Africa was represented exclusively by Western filmmakers. The continent was portrayed as an exotic land without history or culture. Examples of this kind of cinema abound and include jungle epics such as Tarzan and The African Queen, and various adaptations of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel titled King Solomon's Mines. In the mid-1930s, the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment was carried out in order to educate the Bantu peoples.

Also, in the French colonies, Africans were, by law, not permitted to make films of their own. This ban was known as the "Laval Decree". In 1955, however, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra - originally from Benin, but educated in Senegal - along with his colleagues from Le Group Africain du Cinema, shot a short film in Paris by the name of Afrique Sur Seine (1955). Vieyra was trained in filmmaking at the prestigious Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographique (IDHEC) in Paris, and in spite of the ban on filmmaking in Africa, was granted permission to make a film in France. Afrique Sur Seine explores the difficulties of being an African in France during the 1950s and is considered to be the first film directed by a black African.

                                King Solomon's Mines (1985 film)

Before independence, only a few anti-colonial films were produced. Examples include Les statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais about European robbery of African art (which was banned by the French for 10 years and Afrique 50 by René Vauthier about anti-colonial riots in Côte d'Ivoire and in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

Also doing film work in Africa during this time was the French Ethnographic filmmaker, Jean Rouch. Rouch's work has been controversial amongst both French and African audiences. With films like Jaguar (1955), Les maitres fous (1955), Moi, un noir (1958), and La pyramide humaine (1959), Rouch made documentaries that were not explicitly anti-colonial, but which challenged many received notions about colonial Africa and gave a new voice to Africans through film. Although Rouch has been accused by Ousmane Sembene - and others - as being someone who looks at Africans "as if they are insects," Rouch was an important figure in the early development of African film and was the first person to work with several Africans who would go on to have important careers in African cinema (Oumarou Ganda, Safi Faye, and Moustapha Alassane, to name a few).

THE AFRICAN QUEEN 1951

Since most of the films prior to independence were egregiously racist in nature, African filmmakers of the independence era - like Ousmane Sembene and Oumarou Ganda, amongst others - saw filmmaking as an important political tool for rectifying the erroneous image of Africans put forward by Western filmmakers and for reclaiming the image of Africa for Africans.

1960s and 1970s

The first African film to win international recognition was Ousmane Sembène's La Noire de, also known as Black Girl. It showed the despair of an African woman who has to work as a maid in France. The writer Sembène had turned to cinema to reach a wider audience. He is still considered to be the 'father' of African Cinema. Sembène's native country Senegal continued to be the most important place of African film production for more than a decade. With the of the African film festival FESPACO in Burkina Faso in 1969, African film created its own forum. FESPACO now takes place every two years in alternation with the film festival Carthago in (Tunisia).

BLACK GIRL (1966)

Souleymane Cissé's Yeelen (Mali 1987) and Cheick Oumar Sissoko's Guimba (Mali 1995) were well received in the west. Some critics criticized the filmmakers for adapting to the exotic tastes of western audiences. Many films of the 1990s, e.g. Quartier Mozart by Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameroon 1992), are situated in the globalized African metropolis.

A first African Film Summit took place in South Africa in 2006. It was followed by FEPACI 9th Congress.

The cinema of Nigeria grew quickly in the 1990s and 2000s to become the second largest film industry in the world in terms of number of annual film productions, placing it ahead of the United States and behind the Indian film industry. According to Hala Gorani and Jeff Koinange formerly of CNN, Nigeria has a US$250 million movie industry, churning out some 200 videos for the home video market every month.

Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of both value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies has stimulated the country's video film industry. The Nigerian video feature film industry is sometimes colloquially known as Nollywood, having been derived as a play on Hollywood in the same manner as Bollywood.

FESPACO, BURKINA FASO

The primary distribution centers are Idumota Market on Lagos Island, and 51 Iweka Road in Onitsha in Anambra State. Currently, Nigerian films outsell Hollywood films in Nigeria and many other African countries. Some 300 producers turn out movies at an astonishing rate—somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 a year. The films go straight to DVD and VCD discs. Thirty new titles are delivered to Nigerian shops and market stalls every week, where an average film sells 50,000 copies. A hit may sell several hundred thousand. Discs sell for two dollars each, making them affordable for most Nigerians and providing astounding returns for the producers.

Most of the films are produced by independent companies and businessmen. However, the big money for films in Nigeria is made in the direct-to-video market. The average film costs between US$17,000 and US$23,000, is shot on video in just a week—selling up to 150,000–200,000 units nationwide in one day. With this type of return, more and more are getting into the film business there. By most reports, Nollywood is a $500-million industry. And it keeps growing. According to Frank Ikegwuonu, author of Who's Who in Nollywood,[15] about "1,200 films are produced in Nigeria annually." And more and more filmmakers are heading to Nigeria because of "competitive distribution system and a cheap workforce." Further, Nigerian films seem to be better received by the market when compared to foreign films because "those films are more family oriented than the American films."

Nigerian movies are available in even the most remote areas of the continent. The last few years have seen the growing popularity Nigerian films among the people of African diaspora in Europe, North America and the Caribbean. Nigerian films are currently receiving wider distribution as Nigerian producers and directors are attending more internationally acclaimed film festivals. In the USA, viewers can watch Nollywood and other West African movies on Afrotainment.

Many Nollywood movies have themes that deal with the moral dilemmas facing modern Africans. Some movies promote the Christian or Islamic faiths, and some movies are overtly evangelical. Others, however, address questions of religious diversity, such as the popular film One God One Nation, about a Muslim man and a Christian woman who want to marry but go through many obstacles.

    

The 2007 documentary Welcome to Nollywood by director Jamie Meltzer gives an overview of the industry. It pays particular attention to directors Izu Ojukwu and Chico Ejiro, and acknowledges the unusual, rapid, and enterprising way that most Nollywood films are created as well as their significance and contribution to the greater society and the production difficulties Ojukwu faced during production of his war epic Laviva.

    

Franco Sacchi's 2007 documentary This Is Nollywood follows the production of Check Point, directed by Bond Emeruwa. It features interviews with Nigerian filmmakers and actors as they discuss their industry, defend the types of films they make and detail the kind of impact they can have. In 2007, Franco Sacchi presented the film on Nollywood at the TED conference.

    

The 2007 Danish documentary Good Copy Bad Copy features a substantial section on Nigerian cinema. It focuses on the direct-to-DVD distribution of most Nigerian movies, as well as the industry's reliance on off-the-shelf video editing equipment as opposed to the more costly traditional film process.