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While I don't know a ton about film in Nigeria and the broader West Africa region, I figure that's a lot of us here, and what better way to learn than goons learning together? "Nollywood", as Wikipedia tells me, is a term coined in 2002 to describe the film output of Nigeria, whether in English or any of 300 languages in the nation. Wiki further notes that the term can also be used for Ghanaian and other regional films (which often have Nigerian backing or input), so overall there's no clear definition of where "Nollywood" stops, so for the purpose of this thread I suggest anywhere within West Africa.  The first truly Nigerian film ever made was 1926's silent film Palaver made by a British filmmaker. It's not on YouTube, but the British Film institute has the whole thing on their site, so I plan to watch it in the coming week: http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1342 It's about a rivalry between a British mining officer and a tin miner that leads to a war. By reputation, apparently it's really colonial and racist, but still significant in that it's about Nigeria and features Nigerian actors. The next big film Wiki mentions is Sanders of the River, about a British colonial administrator who governs well, but in his absence a conflict breaks out and his replacement screws the pooch on bringing peace. Eventually the administrator comes back, and working with his allied Nigerian chief saves the day. So again not the most progressive film, but historically significant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwimk3p8DrU Nigeria became independent from Britain in 1960, kicking off the Golden Age of Nigerian film, given a boost in 1972 when the government required that all 300 cinemas in the nation be transfered to Nigerian management so as to prevent American, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese films from dominating the scene. Amadi (1975) was the first Nigerian film in an indigenous language (Igbo) and tells the tale of a young man returning to his village after a failed try in the big city, and coming to question the abandonment of traditional Nigerian culture. The next big trend was the Home Video Boom of the 1980s, when the arrival of VHS tapes brought new accessibility to film. I can't find it online, but really want to see the 1980 horror film Evil Encounter, which screened on TV one night and by the next morning thousands of copies were circulating on VHS recorded off the show. Film started exploding nationwide, but led to a massive output of ultra-low-budget films, a lot of it schlock, and a real lack of unified vision, and a lack of profits due to rampant video piracy. Heading into the 2000s, the era of New Nigerian film began. Cinemas, facing obsolescence due to piracy, home video, and internet began to reimagine themselves as art institutions presenting an experience vice just a film, and started really raising the bar on what they were willing to show. Filmmakers stepped up to meet the demand with actual quality films instead of churning out junk. The 2006 supernatural film Irapada in considered the first of New Wave film in Nigeria. Then 2009's The Figurine, a monkey's paw-esque film about some young people who find a statue in the jungle that grants their wishes... at a price, was a watershed film that was critically acclaimed internationally. Most of the above is just from Wikipedia and a few other film sites, along with my tenuous knowledge of the region, but I think it gives a basis to begin, and almost assuredly there are a few people here who have seen some Nigerian (or other West African) films and can fill us in, give more recommendations, etc. I will note that, depending on what versions of English you're familiar with, you may find even English-language Nigerian films a little hard to follow until you get used to the dialect. I could absolutely not understand a lot of people, or anything on the radio, when I first got to Liberia, but once I got adjusted it was pretty easy and educational. I saw lots of bits and pieces of Nigerian films while working in Liberia (just seeing them on the TV at a bar and whatnot), but don't claim any real expertise. The one full-length Nollywood film I've seen in its entirety is the 2014 historical thriller October 1 (used to be on Netflix) which is about a police officer investigating a serial killer in a rural village just days before Nigeria was to become independent. I'll post more about it later, but it's worth seeing. I do however know a scattering about West African music videos, and will follow up with a few of those below this post. I would suggest that for the purposes of this thread, and to make it more accessible to casual readers, that we also post music videos and short films so that people can dip their toe before getting into a 90-minute film that may have really dense dialect or heavily depend on knowledge of Nigerian society. But any exposure is better than none, and with 185 million Nigerians (in an officially Anglophone country) and 360 million people in West Africa, the influence of Nollywood is bound to increase in the coming years.
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Mar 18, 2018 00:23
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[This space reserved for recommendations for films/clips/trailers/music videos that are available streaming online, whether free or via paid service] Netflix as of March 2018 -- Taxi Driver: Oko Ashewo (2015), dark comedy -- Invasion 1897 (2014), historical drama about the British invasion of the Benin Empire -- Head Gone (2014), comedy where a bus driver loses a bunch of psych patients so snares random commuters to replace them -- Mum, Dad, Meet Sam (2015), comedy where a Nigerian son brings his white British girlfriend back to Lagos to meet his parents -- Couple of Days (2016), three young couples hang out in the city of Ibadan, slowly realizing their relationships aren't as sound as they think -- Gone Too Far (2013), British-Nigerian comedy of manners about a Nigerian who moves to London to join his brother there -- The Department (2015), romantic crime/action film, a former industrial saboteur-turned-housewife is lured back in for a final job -- The Duplex (2015), supernatural thriller about moving into a possessed home Amazon Prime as of March 2018 -- Nollywood Babylon, documentary about the industry -- Cruz, romantic comedy (?) TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 22, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 00:24
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As promised, here are my two absolute favorite West African music videos. Both of these songs (especially Bello) were playing in constant rotation in 2015-2016 when I worked in Liberia, absolutely unavoidable blasting out of taxicabs or bars and tea-shops down the street. -- Godwin (Korede Bello, 2015): this is a video so upbeat it makes LEN's "If You Steal My Sunshine" look like Type-O Negative. While I don't agree with the theology, the hook is pretty infectious, the dancing is great, and it's just so drat cheerful. There's also a brief spoken bit at the beginning which would be a good measure of how well you can understand (not particularly dense) Nigerian English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w14zUTXOhYE (Note: when he says "don" most of the time he means "done" as opposed to "don't") Seriously, I don't think I could be as happy as this dude even if I were simultaneously getting a blowjob while winning the lottery.  -- Bring it On (PSquared, feat. Dave Scott): this one is a real tear-jerker from twin brothers Paul and Peter Okoye of Nigeria, with backing from an American (?) blues singer. The lyrics are a little dense, but if you google them it's not hard to follow along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUxptvq-Gjw 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 00:38
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I appreciate this thread and would love to follow along a bit. Which countries would you say fall into this Nollywood region. Some African nations, particularly Senegal, have rich film histories while others have almost no cinema whatsoever.
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Mar 18, 2018 01:32
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TrixRabbi posted:I appreciate this thread and would love to follow along a bit. Which countries would you say fall into this Nollywood region. Some African nations, particularly Senegal, have rich film histories while others have almost no cinema whatsoever. I think for the purposes of this thread anything Sub-Saharan West Africa is kosher. Nigeria and Ghana make up the vast bulk of West African film, but if you know cool stuff about Senegalese film, by all means kick it. I found the trailer for The Antique shown as a poster in the OP, and while a little unpolished it looks pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x25jWdhu-iY
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Mar 18, 2018 01:51
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Netflix streaming used to have a suprising number of Nollywood films.
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Mar 18, 2018 02:42
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Netflix streaming used to have a suprising number of Nollywood films. I have several in my queue, and have placed them in the post below the OP. Some of the dark comedies look pretty funny actually. Found just a few on Amazon Prime as well. EDIT: it sucks that NF has so few given that Nollywood films probably tend to be cheap to license. There's an African streaming service called IRokoTV and they only pay $10-25K to license a given film, which I can't imagine is much more than some 1980s B horror-film costs to license. Though maybe it's just the issue that anyone who really wants Nollywood is already spending $8/mo on IRoko and doesn't watch them on Netflix, and the usual Netflix crowd doesn't watch them anyway. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 03:30
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I watched Head Gone on Netflix last night, and while it's not highbrow art I'd say it's a good fit for the "screwball comedy" category along the lines of Caddyshack. Basically a zany plot concept and then letting famous comedians mug for the camera, but overall I found it fun with occasional laugh-out-loud moments, and for anyone unfamiliar with West Africa it's a good basic representation of some cultural slices-of-life. I will say though, you're gonna want to watch it with the subtitles on, because though some characters speak very clear business-class Nigerian English, a lot of it is pretty slangy and/or breaks into Igbo or Yoruba or whatnot in snippets. And I'll warn in advance that it doesn't wrap up with a tidy package so much as trails off with a lot of wackiness left hanging, but overall a fun watch. I tried to keep track during the film of little things that wouldn't be clear to anyone unfamiliar (nothing that spoils the plot): -- when they grab one guy and he accuses them of being "ritualists" and mentions the upcoming election, he's saying that he suspects they are cultists out to sacrifice him for magical rituals to influence the election. This is a *big* loving deal in parts of West Africa, about 99% moral panic but 1% people actually being abducted and murdered especially around election time or other sensitive periods. Newspapers in Liberia literally would have articles like "good news! The woman found murdered and dismembered was apparently just a regular murder by a psycho, not a ritual killing, what a relief!" -- the scene where the guy flags a car down, you can see he's plucked divots of dirt with tall grass from the roadside and laid them down on the pavement; in a country without easy access to road flares that's the standard way to signal that your car has broken down and steer traffic away. -- One I don't know: the player in the fancy car who picks up the girl patient, I think they're trying to connote something significant about his accent since he sounds really different, but I'm not sure if the implication is that he's spent time in the UK or US or what, so if anyone perchance is Nigerian I'd like to know what the intent was there. -- In one of the final scenes where there's a trio of government inspectors, the non-black guy is a Lebanese Nigerian, some of whom have been in the country for three generations or more and make up a notable minority of the merchant and professional class. Whereas the Asian guys earlier in the film are foreign businessmen. If anyone watches and has questions, I know less about Nigeria specifically but might know the answer if it's a larger regional cultural thing. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 10:00
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There was a cool documentary on Netflix once upon a time called Nollywood Babylon. The best parts examine the role of Christianity and the film industry's ties to Nigeria's megachurches. I came across an Nigerian movie store when I was in high school (2006ish) so I asked for a comedy, and he gave me My Kingdom Come. It seemed like a traditional story about a king being usurped, but set in modern times. It was hard to understand, and it ended on a cliffhanger (looks like there are 2 sequels) so I only ever watched it once. I'm still not sure if it was actually a comedy and I didn't get it, or the guy just handed me what happened to be sitting on the counter since I woke him up from his nap. The king's lost orphan son seemed like a comedic figure, but he only showed up toward the end. Maybe the sequels are funnier.
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Mar 18, 2018 15:14
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Disco Godfather posted:There was a cool documentary on Netflix once upon a time called Nollywood Babylon. The best parts examine the role of Christianity and the film industry's ties to Nigeria's megachurches. Note in post#2 above I list this doco as currently being available on Amazon Prime Video streaming. So that means I'll have to give that a watch as well.
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Mar 18, 2018 22:25
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I messed around with more searches and I think there are at least 20 or so West African films on Netflix, so if anyone wants I can update the list in post#2. Just got done watching Taxi Driver: Oko Ashewo (2015), a pretty clever dark comedy filmed in Yoruba and English. Overall the cinematography was quite good considering almost all of it was filmed at night, and the sound pretty consistent. I had assumed that the title was just literal, but it is that but also definitely a call-out to Scorsese since rescuing a prostitute is part of the plot. In a weird way it reminded me a fair bit of Big Lebowski somehow, mostly just in terms of the rotating aburdity spiraling around a hapless protagonist, and there are I think some really deliberate Tarantino homages baked into it too. The question for any of these films would be "is it truly a decent film on its own, or it's interesting because it's Nollywood and it also happens to be an okay film?" I'm not totally sure I would've found Head Gone as funny if it weren't also engagingly foreign, but I think Taxi Driver stands pretty well on its own. That said, the flavor of Big City Lagos and the Nigerian underworld does add lot of panache to it as well.
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Mar 22, 2018 07:40
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:I think for the purposes of this thread anything Sub-Saharan West Africa is kosher. Nigeria and Ghana make up the vast bulk of West African film, but if you know cool stuff about Senegalese film, by all means kick it.
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Mar 23, 2018 01:32
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Are there rivalries between Nollywood and other African film communities? I checked where Viva Riva! was from (Congo; been a while since I saw it) and the articles that came up seemed to imply a bit of competitiveness since that movie got a lot of praise.
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Apr 7, 2018 04:05
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