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Nollywood Vs the world: The journey so far



I’d say I’ve been a movie lover from childhood, but then almost every Nigerian kid of my time loved home movies. My type of movie as a kid growing up were the regular Nigerian home movies where the soundtracks alone were enough to tell you the complete story without you having to look at the screen at all, then there was a few cartoons which their comic way of doing things made you enjoy the view without you having to understand anything and the only western movies that interested me were either the Hollywood action movies that the gun fight started almost from the first scene and ended with the actor heroically killing the boss who in all ramification looked stronger and better equipped, or the Bollywood movies which were so much like our native Nollywood movies except for the occasional songs and dances.

But when I was a kid, I did childish things and forgive myself for loving these movies so much then. Adding to the dislike of these movies that came naturally with my growing up was the annoying fact that stories got repeated so often - you know the end from the beginning of a Nollywood movie because you’ve probably seen so many scripts like it in the past, you know that no matter how the odds are stacked against the actor (the protagonist) or how bad the boss (antagonist) messes him up, he will still end up pulling a rabbit out of a hat and overturn his situation.

 I craved and couldn’t wait for something different, the first movie that hit that chord of “yes!!! Finally” was my cousin Jumafor Ajogwu’s(now one of the best producers in Nigeria) “The X-Plan” which never got produced because of budget and he wouldn’t sell his story for any price to anyone at the time (which I supported then but we all know now that it was bad business), I got to read the script and couldn’t wait for the movie to made but it never did and “the x-plan” died with us that read it.

Then I got into the University of Nigeria, got a PC and had access to Wi-Fi and the movie sojourn began. I saw so many good movies than I can remember, but the good cinema standard Nigerian movies got locked away in cinemas and never found a way down to the east as we practically didn’t and still don’t have a working cinema in the east.

Fact is, Nollywood has gone beyond making palace movies or movies about journeys to the evil forest, as a matter of fact they are closing in so fast on their western counterparts but the challenge still remains how to get these movies within the reach of an ordinary Nigerian who is neither based in Lagos nor any other few major Nigerian cities which are privileged to have a cinema. Talking about the role we have to play as movie lovers against piracy is a story for another day as this is the major reason film producers tend to be less friendly movies.


Toby Enejere.

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