I totally agree Hank, but look at the sub-heading on the Globe story???
A thousand films and one queen
At 26, Genevieve Nnaji has starred in 60-plus films in Nigeria's Nollywood, an industry bigger than Bollywood
By MATTHEW HAYS
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 Posted at 5:12 AM EDT
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Montreal — With all of the anxiety about the past year's box-office lull, film-industry types have been preoccupied enough to overlook a major shift in the global cinema landscape. It has long been true that India's national film industry (often referred to as Bollywood) produces the largest number of features per year, at approximately 800, followed by the United States, which puts out about 400 films per annum.
But pulling into first place is Nigeria, a contender some might find unlikely. Buoyed by a voracious appetite among Nigerians (population: 128 million) for their own stories, and bolstered by the proliferation of video equipment -- allowing for less expensive production costs -- this developing nation's burgeoning film business now produces a whopping 1,000 features a year. Many of the films are done on budgets that look shoestring even by low-budget Canadian standards -- often they are shot on the quick, completed in under a week on $10,000.
Nigeria's national cinema has evolved at an incredibly rapid rate, as its video-film phenomenon really only began in the late 1970s. As Nollywood expert and University of Alberta film professor Onookome Okome has noted, Nigerian government officials now see the industry as a crucial component of the economy. "Agents of government are no longer simply interested in the content of video films vis-à-vis how video films portray the cultures," he wrote in the cinema journal Film International last year. "They are now interested in the financial benefits which the enterprise makes possible for the nation."
There are obvious offshoots of a strong and popular national cinema, and with Nollywood's growth has come a fledgling star system. The newly minted queen of Nollywood is Genevieve Nnaji -- star of over 60 films -- as well as a lucrative product-endorsement career on the side, a growing fan base and her own fan site. As one fan recently declared enthusiastically, "Genevieve Nnaji makes Halle Berry look like chopped liver!"
Canadians will be getting a crash course in Nollywood this week, when Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinéma screens a selection of popular Nigerian films, jetting the first lady of this national cinema, Nnaji, into town to introduce the series.
Nnaji, 26, says she is "thrilled" that the festival has chosen to highlight the Nigerian cinema, a national culture she feels too many are prone to overlook. "Hopefully, our efforts in film haven't been wasted."
Nollywood films tend to be full of moralizing messages, cautionary tales in which citizens are handed dire warnings about the perilous consequences of infidelity, crime and greed. The video films are hugely popular with Nigerian women, who are overwhelmingly the cinema's main consumers. The films are akin to the American melodrama genre of the 1940s and 1950s, often reflecting shifting roles for women, at once expected to move forward while remaining true to archaic and rigid gender roles.
"Perhaps women tend to be more emotional," Nnaji says, trying to explain Nollywood's appeal. "These films are like soap operas. I think women are more accepting as well. But men are beginning to get these films more and more, and I think they're becoming more popular with the men as well."
Nnaji began in the film business as an extra when she was 18 and was promptly spotted by a talent agent. She has since made over 60 features, many of them two-part movies, including titles such as Age of My Agony and Games Women Play. This year Nnaji won the African Academy Award for best actress. Her next film involved what Nnaji describes as her most demanding role to date, in Mildred Okwo's 30 Days, about political disruption and the assassination of corrupt government officials.
While arguing that it's important to send "positive messages to kids," Nnaji acknowledges that her screen persona is that of the bad girl or vixen. In Private Sin, which screens this week at the Nouveau Festival, for example, Nnaji plays a wayward wife who causes all manner of horrors for her well-meaning husband. But despite this reputation, Nnaji does not feel pigeonholed.
"People watch out for the best performances in movies," she says. "It's actually a compliment [being typecast]. It means that audiences have seen me in a role and believed it. It's fulfilling. I've actually played many more romantic roles than I have bad-girl roles, but those are the ones that have stuck with audiences."
For Nnaji, the main perception she'd like to see change is the attitude towards anyone who works within the Nigerian film business. "I'd like to think I've helped to change the perception of actors and actresses within our country. We are responsible people. I've been able to play a villain and then people could come out of the cinema and see me as human. That's fulfilling. This is about making a good movie, not about fame or money. There's a downside to it, sometimes -- the media can really get out of hand. But I don't dwell on negatives. I'm still working on it. And I won't stop because I believe in what I'm doing."
Special to The Globe and Mail
Genevieve Nnaji is in Montreal this week to present the Nollywood series at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, which screens until Sunday. (514-844-2172 or
http://www.nouveaucinema.ca).
