FILM COMMENT HOME
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BUY THE NEW ISSUE!
ART & INDUSTRY BY AMY TAUBIN:
NEW: FATIH AKIN'S HEAD-ON AND DANIEL BURMAN'S LOST EMBRACE
ONLINE EXCLUSIVES
SIGN UP FOR
E-NEWS
READ MARCH E-NEWS
FORUM
ARCHIVE
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
WALTER READE THEATER
FILMLINC.COM HOME
COMING IN March/April 2005:
Dustin Hoffman
Bulle Ogier by Gary Indiana
Hirokazu Kore-eda by Chuck Stephens
Amitabh Bachchan by David Chute
Lucrecia Martel's The Holy Girl by Kent Jones
And much more
FILM COMMENT
March / April 2004
OLAF'S WORLD: NIGERIAN VIDEOFILM CULTURE
A homegrown hybrid cinema of outrageous schlock From Africa's most populous nation
by Olaf Möller
Above: The Land Belongs to the Gods
If true trash-culture connoisseurship still existed, Nigeria's videofilm industry would have long since become a major object of cinephilia. Absurdly ardent acting, the absence of anything remotely resembling craftsmanship beyond keeping the actors in frame (forget focus), dialogue-drowning soundtrack noise, sub-amateur-porn production values, and, above all, as in Excursions into Hell and Angels Saving the Day, ultra-twisted stories featuring, on occasion, money-spewing mummies (did I mention the gloriously ridiculous special effects?) and always ending with a moral so heavy you would need a crane to lift it: Nigerian videofilms should have been the next big thing. Strange as it seems to Western eyes, much of the above actually makes perfect artistic sense within its cultural context, although many in the industry would be more than happy to improve the technical standards of their productions.
Unsurprisingly, the Francophone African film establishment - the movers and shakers on the continent and their (often self-appointed) ambassadors in the world at large - have shunned this staunchly English-speaking cinema on the grounds of good taste. Officially they'll say they're only interested in works shot on film. But what they really mean, setting aside the thorny question of Third Cinema, is that they disdain the Nigerian videofilm industry's crass commercialism. Give or take a minor masterpiece or two, nothing could be further from wholesome art cinema, with its healthy messages and clean-cut images, than this lurid West African smut, dedicated to making money hand over fist. Not to mention the fact that videofilms result from a confluence of noncinematic influences seasoned with disreputable movie ingredients from as far afield as Hong Kong, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, and the lower strata of Hollywood - hence anathema to traditionalists and purists. Some regard the industry's rapid growth, without any outside (i.e. Western) support, as a snub to well-meaning ex-colonial paternalists.
Just like the various forms of Indian popular cinema, the narrative strategies employed by Nigerian videofilms are a world away from Western norms. If Bollywood has only now become a part of film festival discourse - when has a Mani Ratnam film ever gone head-to-head with Uncle Jean-Luc in a festival competition? - what chance that Nigeria's stories of demons and witches and the power of money and love will make it into the major leagues, technical problems aside?
After just over 10 years, the videofilm industry - based in the southern half of the country - now churns out roughly 600 titles annually, making Nigeria one of the world's top film-producing nations. The notion of an African Bollywood - half-jokingly called Nollywood - is suddenly catching on. And the videofilm has begun to turn up on the margins of the Western festival scene. This year, Berlin hosted a two-day fringe event of discussions and screenings devoted to the Nigerian videofilm industry, while the Rotterdam International Film Festival presented a tribute to Yoruba auteur Tunde Kelani, who is generally acknowledged as the industry's leading light.
In fact, Kelani is an atypical figure. Trained as a cinematographer in the Seventies, he's one of the few real filmmakers in the videofilm business (most of its entrepreneurs are local businessmen by profession, video store owners and the like) - and one of the only ones familiar with celluloid: a quality-conscious videofilm auteur, an artist of ambition as well as talent.
Rotterdam's retrospective was nonetheless indicative of a certain wariness toward videofilm culture. The festival presented only three of his seven features: Thunderbolt (01), Kelani's melodrama about tribal tensions and the conflict between different schools of medicine (Western vs. African), and two parables of corruption and the abuse of power, Brass Jingle Bells (Sawaroide, 99) and its sequel, The Gong of Taboo (Agogo Eewo, 02). Neither is terribly representative of the videofilm norm, which usually shies away from direct political engagement and whose major productions - such as Kelani's I Want Happiness (Ayo ni mo fe) I & II (96) and The Land Belongs to the Gods (Ti oluwa nile) I - III (97) - present, at their best, a realistic picture of Nigeria's mores, customs, and social problems.
Made as much for theatrical screenings as home video use, these productions often run to six hours and are released in two or three feature-length installments every three months or so. (Sawaroide and Agogo Eewo were made years apart: the first in reaction to Nigeria's military dictatorship, the second one as an expression of hope for the new democracy.)
