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Nollywood and New Cinemas in Global Africa Mahir Şaul, Ralph A. Austen. Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010. vii + 248 pp. $26.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8214-4350-7. Reviewed by Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie Published on H-AfrArts (August, 2016) Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy) The cinematic arts can be arguably defined as adheres to the auteur tradition of French flm‐ the apex of a culture of visuality and it is not by making confronts the emergent example of Nolly‐ chance that the moving image and images of all wood and related modes of flm production that kinds in general have become a key technology of hew to Hollywood’s powerful business-oriented narrative in the era of globalization. In this re‐ model with its global preeminence. These con‐ gard, African cinemas of different historical ori‐ texts present two visions of African cinema that gins, discursive focus and aesthetic orientation can sometimes seem totally divergent. Mahir Şaul are increasingly notable as key aspects of African and Ralph A. Austen, in Viewing African Cinema visual and cultural experiences. The debate over in the Twenty-First Century: Art Films and the what constitutes African cinemas occupies an im‐ Nollywood Video Revolution, attempt to bridge portant place in these developments, especially in this divide between the auteur and populist con‐ light of the divide between auteur and populist texts of African cinema by comparing the two traditions of African flmmaking that seem to di‐ dominant and very different African flm indus‐ vide neatly along colonial lines into Francophone tries. In the introduction to their anthology, Şaul and Anglophone cultures of African cinema. How‐ and Austen define these as a “relatively long-es‐ ever, these categories do not adequately describe tablished tradition of celluloid flms centered in the divergent modes of practice evident in how French-speaking West Africa and identified with such cinemas are located in the global economy, its biennial FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cin‐ where transnational engagements defeat the es‐ ema et de la Television de Ouagadougou) and a sentialist idea of a homogenous or nationalist newer more commercial video flm industry “African cinema.”[1] based in English-speaking West Africa and la‐ In the contemporary era, the classical defini‐ beled, after its major Nigerian source, Nollywood” tion of African cinema as a mode of practice that (p.1). According to Şaul and Austen “the obvious H-Net Reviews differences between FESPACO and Nollywood flm Although Viewing African Cinema in the extend beyond the production conditions, con‐ Twenty-First Century pays attention to the history tent, and form into the realm of cinema scholar‐ and development of FESPACO-style (auteur) cine‐ ship” (p. 2); scholars of francophone art flm are ma, its main focus is on the challenge posed to humanists who are mainly concerned with cine‐ African cinema discourse by Nollywood and relat‐ ma aesthetics while the study of video flms is ed practices. Nollywood emerged from the eco‐ mainly dominated by social scientists (mainly an‐ nomic turmoil that struck African countries in the thropologists) and relegated to the realm of cul‐ 1980s, which killed off a nascent celluloid flm in‐ tural and media studies. The book transcends pre‐ dustry. The key practices that it identified came vious scholarly inquiries into these phenomena from Nigeria, where the term Nollywood was by combining studies of both. coined to describe a nascent flm industry that Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First used the video-film format. Moving from celluloid Century consists of an introduction by Şaul and to video flm as its primary medium, the Nolly‐ Austen and thirteen essays divided into three wood industry in Nigeria produced a vast number parts: part 1 (suggestively titled “The 'Problem' of of movies between 1992, when Kenneth Nnebue Nollywood”) contains fve essays that describe released Living in Bondage, widely regarded as and interpret the Nollywood phenomenon and its the frst Nollywood movie, and 2010 at the rate of spread to different African countries. Part 2 (“Im‐ circa 1,500 movies per year.[1] Although it is usu‐ ported African Films and Their Audiences”) con‐ ally discussed under the rubric of African cinema, tains two essays that analyze the historical and Nollywood is quite a different phenomenon; its contemporary audience reception of African flm. films are almost exclusively produced in the video Part 3 (“FESPACO/Art Films in the Light of Nolly‐ format, and since the early 2000s, in digital video wood”) has six essays that carry out case studies format. Also, the flms are produced in the English of FESPACO and its engagements with Nollywood. language, which distinguishes them from contigu‐ Şaul and Austen state that the essays in the book ous ethnically oriented flms made in Nigerian came from a 2007 conference at the University of languages such as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa (in Nige‐ Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, that brought together ria), Twi (in Ghana), and Kiswahili (in Tanzania) scholars working in both FESPACO and Nolly‐ that support equally substantial and competitive wood flm, and the collected essays affirm the im‐ contexts of contemporary flmmaking usually portance of this conference. However, they erro‐ classed under the Nollywood rubric. Nollywood neously credit the frst conference on Nollywood has subsequently become a truly pan-African cul‐ to this 2007 Urbana-Champaign gathering. Actual‐ tural machine and a nexus of transnational cul‐ ly, the frst such conference was the 2005 Nolly‐ tural productivity.[2] Shot on video, edited on per‐ wood Convention in Los Angeles devoted to clari‐ sonal computers, and copied onto cassettes and fying how the new Nollywood industry fts into digital video discs, Nollywood flms have achieved the discourse of African flm (full disclosure: I or‐ a global footprint connecting Africa, particularly ganized this conference). The Nollywood Conven‐ Nigeria, to its diverse and far-flung diasporas ev‐ tion conference was documented on a website, erywhere.[3] printed programs and radio. The disregard of this Nollywood originated at the end of the twen‐ earlier conference by Saul and Austen is an exam‐ tieth century as a national media form that ple of the perennial Western tactic of unduly emerged free from the control of the state and has claiming primacy in the study of African cultures. since become the most visible cultural machine on the African continent.[4] However, Jonathan Haynes notes that the explosion of video produc‐ 2 H-Net Reviews tion in Nollywood and related industries in to regularize procedures for taxing video-film Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa--per‐ products. haps the most significant cultural phenomenon in Nollywood engages contemporaneity and Africa in the past two decades--has produced a de‐ globalization from an unapologetic location on layed echo in scholarly attention and academic the African continent. Its locale specificity and publishing.[5] Saul and Austen’s anthology transnational formations are therefore of signifi‐ emerged as an appropriate response to Haynes’s cant scholarly interest. This perhaps accounts for challenge to scholars. It contains essays by leading Onookome Okome’s unapologetic description of scholars of African flm who focus on the emer‐ Nollywood as the “mirror through which contem‐ gent media and technologies embodied by Nolly‐ porary Africa is represented to the world” (p. 26). wood: the video/digital flm format, the relative For this author, what Nollywood offers is “a med‐ independence of the industry (it is mainly f‐ ley of social, political, and cultural discourses nanced through the private sector), the frenetic framed within the discursive regime of the popu‐ pace of production that embodies what Sidney lar, commodified and commercialized machine of Kasfir describes in another context as jua kali (hot popular-arts production in Nigeria” (p. 35). sun), which in Nigeria led to astounding numbers Okome dismisses challenges to Nollywood from of flms produced in a single year, and of course “cultural mediators” and the older generation of its global footprint developed through informal Nigerian/African flmmakers who worked in cel‐ but surprisingly efficient partnerships.[6] luloid and were marginalized in the new dispen‐ Şaul and Austen’s introduction to Viewing sation. Most of their complaints centered on what African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century pro‐ they considered the problematic subject matter of vides a succinct summary of each article included Nollywood flms. Ademola James (former director in the book and justifies its tripartite division. of the Nigerian National Film and Video Censors Part 1 of the book contains articles by Jonathan Board) characterized these as follows: “occultism, Haynes, Onookome Okome, Birgit Meyer, Abdala fetishism, witchcraft, devilish spiritualism, uncon‐ Uba Adamu, and Matthias Krings. Jonathan trolled tendency for sexual display, bloodiness, in‐ Haynes is widely regarded as the dean of Nolly‐ cest, violence, poisoning, etc.” (p. 29). wood studies and his article outlines protocols Okome mounts a spirited defense of the in‐ and suggestions for how to incorporate the study dustry, pointing out that its flms reflect the “diffi‐ of Nollywood into existing flm discourse. Noting culties of living in a criminalized state” (p. 37). that ethnographers working in the feld of anthro‐ However, it is hard not to fault Nollywood in all pology of media were largely responsible for the its incarnations for promoting a colonial mentali‐ foundational work in the feld, Haynes encour‐ ty, especially in the realm of religion, through ages flm scholars to apply the full disciplinary ap‐ video flms that privilege Western ideas over in‐ paratus of flm studies to video flms. Haynes's digenous African mores, in what Birgit Meyer de‐ definition of the structure of this industry as an scribes as the “staging of spiritual fghts in which aggregation of myriad tiny, relatively impover‐ the Christian God eventually overpowers indige‐ ished producers marks Nollywood as a classic ex‐ nous deities” (p.
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