Nollywood

Nigeria has a surprisingly successful movie industry. It is the second largest producer of movies in the world, behind Bollywood and ahead of the United States. What differentiates the Nigerian movie industry from others is that the films they produce typically have small budgets; they will film for a mere ten days and have a budget of $15,000. Currently, it is a $250 million movie industry.

Nollywood grew in popularity in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when crime was rampant. This caused public venues such as movie theaters to close because people were afraid to go out. Laws limited some states from showing many programs on television. Foreign video importation was also limited at the time due to laws so some states would show local theatre productions on television stations. 

Living in Bondage, a movie that came out in 1992, is credited as being the film to start the Nollywood craze. Kenneth Nnebue, owns the studio NEK Video Links, which created the film. He had extra imported videocassettes and used them for filming. This inspired other potential filmmakers to produce these “home videos.”

Since then, technology has vastly improved, but the films still go straight to DVD. However, each year between 500 and 1,000 films are released. On average, a film will sell 50,000 copies.  

Nigerian filmmakers are very determined despite the multiple issues they encounter while filming. The locations frequently have some environmental problem including local criminals, power outages, and pollution.

A huge part of Nollywood’s success is the use of English in its films. This allows for a wide and international audience to be created.

Nollywood films tend to focus on modern issues facing Nigerians including religion and religious diversity, HIV/AIDS, prostitution, comedy, and the occult.

The biggest competitor to Nollywood films on the African continent is the Ghanaian film industry. They often collaborate, which confuses Western viewers, who sometimes think the two are the same. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Nigeria

http://www.thisisnollywood.com/nollywood.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/23/showbiz/nollywood-nigeria-audience-popularity/index.html