Nollywood: The Journey So Far

Despite its enormous output, financing remains low, with the average budget for a Nollywood film being around $20,000 to $75,000. The industry is often criticised for low production values. It is characterised by rapid turnaround times, the lack of script development, bad lighting and sound, low-budget special effects and amateur editing.
Directors are mostly self-taught, and are often less important and lower down the Nollywood food chain than stars, producers and distributors. Distributors often act as producers.
Despite all of this, the popularity of Nollywood demands film aficionados, scholars, festivals and cinema programmers take it seriously. A growing body of Nollywood scholarship has emerged over the past 15 years.
From budget to blockbuster
A number of Nollywood directors have started to make higher quality films. These are sometimes referred to as “New Nollywood”, New Nigerian Cinema, or the New Wave. These films are seen more widely than standard Nollywood fare and are accessible to non-African audiences. New Nollywood includes the work of directors such as Kunle Afolayan, Obi Emelonye, Jeta Amata, Stephanie Okereke and Mahmood Ali-Balogun.
The budgets for these films have also increased considerably, ranging from $250,000 to $750,000. The production cycles are also much longer. The New Nollywood films should therefore be recognised as very different from the low-budget video format films.
Red-carpet premieres attracting huge audiences now take place regularly across the world from Nigeria to other African cities and urban centres with a big African diaspora. Film festivals internationally have also picked up on its huge popularity. Special programmes with a Nollywood focus have taken place in Paris, London and New York, among others.
Nollywood can also be watched on pay-TV networks and free-to-air broadcasters across the continent and beyond. South Africa’s M-Net, which broadcasts across Africa, has channels dedicated to Nollywood. Intrepid distributors, mostly from the African diaspora, have created video-on-demand platforms for Nollywood. One example is the huge iROKOv. This has increased accessibility to African diaspora audiences.
Even Netflix has acquired a number of Nigerian films, indicative of the platform’s realisation of Nollywood’s popularity and commercial potential across the world.
The appeal of homegrown stories and characters
But it is in Africa that Nollywood has had the greatest impact. For African audiences who have for decades been fed imported films, the development of a local, homegrown film industry is hugely significant and important.
Nollywood’s popularity has spread across the continent and Nollywood films are watched all over Africa, from Kenya and Tanzania to Cameroon, Guinea and Togo. They are sometimes dubbed or translated through live interpretation at public screenings.
The model has also been exported and adapted across the continent. Video-film industries have been emerging in many countries, including Riverwood in Kenya, Ugawood in Uganda and Bongowood in Tanzania. There are also similar industries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zambia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The most obvious explanation is that the films display familiar and recognisable cultural beliefs, lifestyles, traditions, societal and sociocultural structures, histories, settings and locations. Their themes and narratives tap into the fears, dreams and aspirations of audiences.
Nollywood seems set to expand, grow and diversify along with audience tastes, viewing habits and the industry’s technological advancements.