NOLLYWOOD 2 Doing It Right

25 minutes Documentary

Director/Producer/Camera/Sound/Editing: Jane Thorburn

Two years after I made ‘NOLLYWOOD just doing it’ I returned to Nigeria to investigate how the industry was developing and how the filmmakers had advanced creatively and technically.

How was the intimate relationship between the filmmakers and the audience buying the VCDs being affected by rampant piracy and the proliferation of TV channels showing non-stop independently produced Nigerian Movies?.

The programme investigates whether new well meaning government regulations would stifle the Nigerian creative spirit that enabled people to fund themselves and make programmes that were so popular with a Nigerian & African audience.

Were the filmmakers still focused on the enormous home market or were they gaining international recognition?

At the very moment that the UN issued its statement that 'Nigeria surpasses Hollywood as the worlds's second largest film producer ' the industry was considered by serious Nigerian Film makers to be at a very critical stage. Piracy had become the means of distribution and the profits were not reaching the owners of the films. Improvement in quality had been stifled by the lack of a sound distribution structure.

Academic research into the Nigerian film and video industry had begun but was lagging way behind the reality. The few cinemas that existed in rich areas of Lagos would only show Hollywood films. This meant that there was no significant professional discussion or criticism of the films which was inhibiting the development of the filmmakers. But the huge expansion of the industry had made it impossible to ignore and there was a change of attitude towards Nigerian films at international African film conferences and festivals which had previously been dominated by Art house films from French speaking african countries.

This documentary represents a unique snapshot at a critical moment in the story of the rapid development of Nigerian Film and Video. It is the only documentary that covers a wide spectrum of filmmakers, government policy makers and financial detail. It features Kunle Afolayan on the set of his film ‘ARAROMIRE’ (The Figurine) which was destined to be the first Nigerian film to break into international film festivals while still achieving commercial success at home.

This second documentary is usually screened with the 'NOLLYWOOD just doing it' and is also in the Nigerian Film & Video Board's Archive and other University Libraries.

Supporting articles

• Journal of African of African Media Studies
  Volume 3 Number 1
  LOVE & MADNESS
  Comparative Reading of 'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel García Marquéz and 'Araromire' (The Figurine) by Kunle Afolayan. The article makes reference to the treatment of magic, traditional beliefs, belief in the super-natural and superstition in Nigerian and Latin American film and literature.
• LOCAL GONG GLOBAL
  Updated article reflecting the international success of Araromire.
  To be published by the University of Ibadan. Nigeria 2012

Screenings

• AFRICAN FILM IN THE DIGITAL ERA - November 2009
  CREAM/CAMRI Conference. University of Westminster
  Conference Key note speaker was Emeka Mba. Head of Nigerian Film & Video Censors Board who features in the documentary.
• FILMING AGAINST THE ODDS 50 years of filming in Africa - November 2010
  CREAM/CAMRI Conference. University of Westminster
• Transmissions on HiTV (on Sky UK) - April 2010
  www.hitvuk.com
  www.hitv.com.ng
  11th April – Nollywood doing it right 2 at 8pm
  25th April - Nollywood doing it right 2 at 8pm
  (alternating with earlier documentary Nollywood Just doing it)
• Galway African Film Festival. Huston School of Film & Digital Media. Ireland. May 2013