Nollywood Babylon

Nollywood Babylon

74 minutes

In 74 minutes Nollywood Babylon breaks down the colonial roots of cinema’s presence in Nigeria, the languishing years of economic decline, and the birth of a new film industry through the creation of readily available consumer video equipment. Over the course of this documentary, we speak with a Nollywood filmmaker, a poet, \an evangelical, an actress – many clearly delineated perspectives are given an individual voice through which to be represented. It’s a lot of ground to cover and, in the end, what results is a feeling of frustration at the film’s lack of clarity.

Nollywood titles are described and some brief clips are shown, but don’t feel illustrative of anything. The majority of the interviewees speak about how the purpose of Nollywood is to tell African stories by African people, but a good deal of what we see seems heavily influenced by the West both in its traditional approach to genre storytelling and in the way that the business aspects of the work seem to supersede most other concerns. The universality of the films’ subject matter is covered multiple times, but the sensibility that’s producing them is largely glossed over. Older, pre-Nollywood, filmmakers lament the newer approaches to filmmaking, complaining that it’s impossible to make a quality feature in just a week. What then, were the approaches that preceded it, and how do they differ from the present situation? The poet Odia Ofeimun says near the end of the film that the great Nigerian film has not yet been made, looking forward. In this particular moment, a greater understanding of where they are would have been appreciated.

This idea of the future is largely covered via an exploration of the rise of evangelism in Nigeria, which takes up the better part of Nollywood Babylon’s later moments, and comes off a bit like a last-ditch grab towards something more that’s mostly built on too small of a foundation to sustain it. The shocking news that, with its increased popularity, an increased number of evangelical films are being made is offered up for anyone who wants it. We speculate as to whether or not religion offers some sort of a narcotic effect on people who, over the years, have been oppressed by violence and poverty and come to the conclusion that it does. Interest returns when money is factored in again, because it appears that the attendees of these churches, much like in the US, are voluntarily fleecing themselves on God’s behalf, offering up more than they can truly afford to the church. This increase in religious interest has resulted in more evangelical films being made, with one of Nigeria’s most successful film producers being the head of one of its biggest churches.

If this documentary doesn’t entirely make it clear what Nollywood cinema is all about, it at least tells us this: it is the most influential form of cultural self-representation that Nigeria has. Lancelot, the Nollywood director who is followed throughout the film, at one point talks about how America was able to colonize the entire world through music and movies. If that’s the pursuit at hand, then the implied threat is that Nollywood may be a self-destructive force, motivated more by avarice than a self-avowed desire to be true.

What distinguishes Nollywood from other film industries is the homemade feel of its movies and the grassroots approaches taken to the making and distribution of them. Its most successful filmmakers are relentlessly prolific and their films are made on small budgets with tiny crews, shot on consumer home video cameras, then distributed exclusively in street markets via video CD. And yet the Nigerian film industry is the third largest in the world, following the US and India. Nollywood Babylon is a good, but cursory, glance.

by Andrei Alupului