Nollywood has grown undeniably and impressively, to the point of being the second-largest film industry in the world. According to PwC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2022-2026, Nollywood contributed 2.3% ($660 million) to GDP. In addition to this development, IMF reported that in 2020, Nigeria overtook South Africa in pay TV subscriptions with over 6.9 million pay-TV households as of 2021. The number has been projected to grow upwards to 7.4 million by 2023.
Yet, despite these achievements, it is important to note that the Cinema of Nigeria heavily focuses on popular genres like drama, comedy, and romance, although it has produced a few films exploring genres like crime, public health, paranormal, and fantasy. Nonetheless, it still leaves a host of major genres unexplored.
There is no doubt that genres like musicals, biographies, science fiction, futuristic thrillers, fantasy, apocalyptic fiction, psychological thriller, animation, and extreme documentaries, will usher in a new wave of distinctive African storytelling.
Although, historical epic films like October 1 (2014), Half of a Yellow Sun (2013), 76 (2016), and The Legend of Inikpi (2020) explored several aspects of Nigeria’s history, much of our history is still left unknown to coming generations.
This leaves in the mind, the question of why Nigeria Cinema can’t diversify past the big comedy films topping the box-office chart. It would seem that films that attempted to break this barrier by trying to incorporate animations and graphics are frustrated by a mediocrity output. Hence, producers resort to what sells, “gra-gra”.
So what is the root of the challenge of spreading our wings?
Instinctively, one may say inadequate funding, capital, and lack of equipment is the major reason impeding our capability to diversify our creative film-making ability, however, why this is true to some extent, as there have been great foreign films made with low- to- modest budgets.
I believe deep into the root of this issue is Nigeria’s weak education system, not in terms of academic performance but in terms of creativity and innovation. Our education system largely in Nigeria is so restrictive that as an average pupil or student in a public school, we are only limited to “the scheme of work “, with no attention paid to developing our creative ability; anything extra-curricular seems, to be a cause of distraction. Education is beyond having the knowledge of Government or Biology but applying this so-called knowledge. Not merely what we write on exam papers.
In reality, we as Nigerians were hardly taught the real business of life; which is making the most of the resources we have in the most creative and innovative manner, which is very crucial in film-making.
Film-making in Nigeria for as long as I can remember is something attributed to arts, and while this is salient, a great deal of excellent film-making is tied to sciences, technology, and computer science.
Film-making is beyond “acting”, it’s telling and to tell requires knowledge. A strong education is crucial in providing aspiring filmmakers with the essential technical skills required for different genres of filmmaking. Unexplored genres like science fiction, fantasy, and animation demands specialized knowledge and technical expertise.
The great thing is that one never stops being educated. Film-makers need to come to the point of developing their own technical skills or technical team, while making the most innovative use of what they have.
