Criticising Nollywood

updated: December 21, 2009

In the last two years I have been the chief film critic of The Punch, the largest circulating daily in Nigeria, although I have also worked as an arts journalists for The Guardian and The Comet also in Lagos, Nigeria. Even though I read music at University, the visual pleasantries of the big screen have always held a tremendous attraction for me. Nevertheless, my background in music is useful in having a complete approach to film as a moving picture.

I enjoy a film better when its story is told through the language of cinema rather than dialogue. I abhor censorship of any kind in film. Films should be rightly classified for viewers. Filmmakers should be allowed to communicate through their creativity.

But the situation is not exactly like that in Nigeria, where the film industry, now dubbed Nollywood by the New York Times, is now the third largest producer of films in the world, after Hollywood and India's Bollywood. My problem with our Nollywood is not with the video format through which nearly all the films are being produced, but the low quality and the arrant disregard for the rules of the profession. However, I have been fascinated as a reporter that many Nigerians still prefer these poorly produced video films to the big flicks from the West. As a critic however, I am yet to see enough reason for celebration.

Because of the “cash and carry“ pattern of producing film in Nigeria, critical analysis of the films are lacking. Producers only associate with journalists who sing their praises with their writings, in the name of encouraging them. Rather than have an association of film critics, a group of reporters danced to the tune of producers by forming the so-called Guild of Movie Journalists. What they do is to attend tele-guided film previews that lack critical reviews. Save for a few critics, film criticism is lacking in Nigeria. However, there are a few publications that focus on the film industry. Most are patronising but a few daily newspapers like The Punch, The Guardian and This Day are championing new waves of critical analysis of the film industry in Nigeria, more so that the whole world seemed to have been attracted by the phenomenon called Nollywood.

I have been privileged to have covered the Cannes Film Festival, and I look forward to the 55th Berlin film festival as a platform through which I can reach other worlds through their films, meet and interview filmmakers from other parts of the world, and most importantly seek professional comments on the true language of film - is it about the format on which the film is shot that matters or the expertise put into it?

I hope to discover at the festival what it really takes for a good African film to be considered for mainstream distribution.

Steve Ayorinde (Nigeria)