Let's start this column with a quiz
question. Which film center produced more commercial movies in 2005: Hollywood (United States),
Bollywood (India),
or Nollywood (Nigeria)? If you guessed Hollywood, guess again. America
produced only 611 commercial films in 2005. Ok, Bollywood
then. Nope. Although India
outshone the United States,
producing 964 films, they produced less than half the output of Nollywood, which released more than 2000 films. (Hollywood comes out on
top when the criteria is gross sales income.)
Admittedly, the Nigerian film industry
operates on different principles from those of America
and India.
Most films are low-budget, often costing less than $30,000 to make. They are
shot in 10 days or less by hand-held video cameras, and distributed directly to
DVD without ever seeing the light (or is it the "dark"?) of a movie
theater. Most films made in Nigeria
sell for about $3 and rent for 50 cents.
What is interesting about Nigerian films
is that one of the most popular plot lines features the clash of religions, old
and new. The key characters are villains who use aspects of traditional African
religions, often characterized as witchcraft or voodoo, to work their wicked
ways.
In the end, however, Christianity triumphs
by redeeming the victims and vanquishing the evil doers, although they may be
forgiven upon conversion to Christianity. Make no mistake, this plot-line may
be camp and hackneyed, but it usually is played down and dirty for all it is
worth.
Although The Guardian (London) recently characterized this genre as
the "voodoo horror flick," this really describes the films for the
benefit of Western film viewers. Within Nigeria
itself, these films echo the historical transformation of southern Nigeria from
its traditional religions to Christianity.
While Islam entered northern Nigeria as
early as the 11th century, Christianity arrived in the south with the
Portuguese in the 1500s and the British in the 1700s, along with the slave trade.
During the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, after the end of slavery, Britain
established direct rule of Nigeria
through a series of conflicts. They brought trade with the West, and with it,
education-largely through mission schools. Christianity was seen in the south
as enabling upward mobility (as had Islam in the north) and so Anglicanism took
hold among the Yoruba in the southwest, while Catholicism became rooted among
the Igbo in the southeast. Both worked to eliminate the practices and beliefs
of traditional religions. This was so successful that by the 1990s, less than
10 percent of Nigerians followed traditional ways and Christianity had become
the religion of nearly 40 percent of Nigerians (nearly all in the south), with
the remainder being Muslim (in the north).
The traditional religions of the Yoruba
and the Igbo differ in important ways, but they both emphasize the existence of
spirits, particularly the spirits of the deceased and of ancestors. These
spirits have the power to affect the living. Being morally neutral, they can be
used for good and evil, depending on the purpose of the person trying to access
their power.
With traditional southern Nigerian
religions dying out under the onslaught of Christianity, the theological
structures in which spirit worship existed have been forgotten. The activities
of communicating with spirits and using their power is now seen in a Christian
perspective as witchcraft.
It is not surprising, then, that the
popularity of Nollywood films is almost entirely
limited to southern Nigeria,
for the common Nollywood film plot described above
reinforces the social and religious transformation of southern Nigeria from
its traditional religious practices to Christianity.
Furthermore, this transformation
progresses across the generations unevenly. Older Nigerians are more likely to
practice elements of traditional religions, while members of the younger
generation often know little about traditional religions beyond superstition.
Given the film industry's cutting-edge character in Nigeria and its popularity among
younger Nigerians, these Nollywood plots help
solidify Christianity's increasing hold on the populace.
Nollywood films,
with their religious themes, have a broad appeal outside Nigeria,
especially where similar religious transformations have taken place. South Africa now has a satellite TV channel
devoted to Nollywood films, and BSkyB,
Rupert Murdoch's British pay-per-view satellite company, is adding a Nollywood channel for Nigerian and other African
expatriates in Europe.