Nollywood - a new beginning for Nigerian Actors
As a rising Movie Production power-house, Nollywood has come of age. Less than a decade, this icon has become the envy of the whole world, especially with its focus on producing Movies for Nigerians, and mostly by Nigerians - both at home and abroad. As if it has a life of its own, it has risen from the days of abyss when people wonder if the name really mean anything up to a point now when the name “Nollywood” means Nigerian Movies and Nigeria Music, not just to Nigerians but to Africans and people of all walks of life. Nollywood is a common name now known to people of Kenya, South-Africa, Ivory coast, and so on - just to name a few
It’s hard to see someone from anywhere in African who is not familiar with this Nollywood Phenomenon. Despite the initial critics who claimed the name “Nollywood” smell like another imperialistic inclination, many has, de-facto, come to accept this name; although some will claim that the coining of the name “Nollywood” was based on a borrowed concept, a concept that is synonymous with Hollywood and Bollywood, the fact remains that everything about Nollywood is Nigerian - it’s actors, it’s genre of movies, the plots, the market, and even the consumers - all are definitely Nigerian.
One always wonder a while back if Nollywood will ever become relevant to the aspirations of Nigerians defining their own movies and setting free their movie production capabilities from the grip of foreign production studios, studios that determine what will be produced, who will produce what, and when to produce. Although most Nigerian movies are produced within a short timeframe ranging from a few weeks to a few months, the quality has consistently improved - in fact, the quality of movies produced these days are rated first class. The industry has learned and has improved a lot.
Despite the conditions: epileptic power supply, unstable, deteriorating economic condition, Nollywood has crawled its way to the third most visible movie industry on our planet; despite the several years of repressive military regime, wreck less political class, uncertain daily-living in Nigeria, Nollywood manages to attain a third place, after Hollywood and Bollywood, in the league of global movie power-houses. In fact, there is a constant confusion on which one comes second - Bollywood or Nollywood.
Until the recent technological advancement, past actors have a difficult time competing on the world stage, not for the lack of talent but because the cost of producing movies was beyond the reach of many; one cannot even being to quantify talents that perished in Nigeria because they could not afford to partake in delivering movies to consumers due to prohibitive cost. And, as a result of their financial hinderance, most Nigerians contends with consuming foreign moves despite the visible lack of direct connection to such movies - this is true for Nigeria Music, just as it is true for Nigerian Movies.
Notwithstanding the crushing financial limitation of producing movies before the last decade, some theatrical groups, through exceptional theatrical skills and astonishing performances managed to rise above stage performance and move into movie productions - mostly based on the old celluloid capability of the 70’s. Still new in our memories are those who actually championed the pre-Nollywood era. Great performers such as Ola Balogun, Eddie Ugbomah, and late Herbert Ogunde
Even the recent Nigerian Music artist springing up from various parts of Nigeria, who are blending the influence of music from other countries, mixing imported rhythms with the tunes of native melodies, bridging lyrics from various origins with Nigerian songs of yester-years, are all benefiting from the various opportunities provided by the presence of Nollywood in Nigeria; The support they derive is not limited to financial support in form of sponsorship, but also the accessibility of various internet-based music outlets such as YouTube.com, NaijaMotion.com and others
Back to Nollywood: Nigerian movies that were once enjoyed by only Nigerians is now accessible to Nigerians in Diaspora, but more importantly, Nigerian Music and Nigeria Movies are now enjoyed by other Africans and, in fact, these are available and enjoyed by Non-Africans. Looking into the future, I see Nollywood becoming an icon on the same scale as Hollywood or Bollywood. More significant is the very likelihood that Nollywood will one day dominate the global stage and receive the batton from Hollywood, allowing it to dictate not just social-cultural benchmarks but also morph social-cultural identities.
NaijaMotion.com is the online destination for Nigerian Artist to upload and showcase their talent to Nigerians and the whole world. Click here to check out Nigeria Music Artist. There are many interesting videos on this site. You an watch Nigeria comedy and other interesting videos
Tags: actors, Artiste, culture, entertainment, history, Movie producer, movies, music, News, Nigeria, videos
News | Kunle Dole | 
January 7, 2011 3:39 am | 
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