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December 7, 2008 • 5:42 pm 3

Film Review: This is Nollywood

This is Nollywood directed by Franco Sacchi, DVD only, 56 minutes, 2007, Nigeria. Producer: Franco Sacchi and Robert Caputo, Associate Producer: Aimee Corrigan. Distributed by California Newsreel.

nollywood_wide

Popular interest in Nollywood, the southern Nigerian film industry, is fast gaining traction in the West. Not least because the 16 year-old industry is the third largest in the world (Hollywood is first, Bollywood second). Profits are estimated at more than  $250 million (measured in 2006). Crews put out between 500 and 1000 films annually, employ thousands of people (if mostly on an informal basis) and make their films on the cheap (maximum budget, $20,000).

Nollywood’s fan base is just limited to Nigeria. West Africans in general are big Nollywood fans, and the films have a growing following in Eastern and Southern Africa. The large Nigerian diaspora in North America and Western Europe also presents a ready market.

At least three recent documentary films by Western directors focusing on this phenomenon have been released in the last three years.

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May 13, 2008 • 9:06 pm 4

Film: No Africans at Cannes. In the backroom, yeh.

The Cannes International Film Festival starts tomorrow (till May 25th). The official program can be viewed here. I may be missing something, but no African film or film with an African theme (including North Africa) made the official cut. African films are shown as part of the “Pavillon les Cinemas du Sud” (Pavilion of Cinema of the South). Full list here (including Changing Faces, Zimbabwe, Triomf, Black Business/Une Affaire de Negres, and Paris a tout prix). People used to call that the “development” section. There is also a special set of screenings of African shorts and some discussions and screenings of films by young Africans.

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