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Copyright of Cahiers d'Études Africaines is the property of Editions EHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In spite of the homophobic nature of Nigerian society, the LGBTQ+ rights movement has been very visible in Nigeria. A number of local pro-LGBTQ+ initiatives have sought to challenge the conservative myths and homophobic stereotypes that prevail in the society. One method used for such advocacy has been avant-garde cinema, particularly lesbian or gay films. A case in point is Ikpe-Etim's 2020 romantic film titled Ife. As an unusual Nollywood movie, Ife strongly makes a case for the human rights of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women in Nigeria. Its very positive representation of what Nigerian legislation and censorial forces consider deviant sexualities has fueled a huge controversy in the Nigerian socio-cultural sphere. This controversy has been understudied. Using Anthonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony and the feminist film theory as interpretative tools, this paper examines how Ikpe-Etim's film is both a counter-hegemonic and queer feminist initiative. The paper argues that although Ife contributes to proselytism for LGBTQ+ rights and feminism in Nigeria, it has serious weaknesses and limitations. Despite the producer's and director's sexual identities and work as activists, straight Nollywood filmmakers have remained reluctant to join the LGBTQ+ rights movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Posthumanism emphasises the greater role technology plays in meaning-making in society today. It also highlights a shift away from the dominance of Eurocentric perspectives in such discursive engagements. Using posthumanism as a theoretical base, this review works to look at the kinds of subjectivities that emerge in a posthuman context. Specifically, it focuses on a film, Namaste Wahala, which released globally on Netflix in February 2021. The film is described as the first joint Bollywood and Nollywood film. Based on the opportunity for global South storytelling and complex meaning-making that such a film offers via online platform Netflix, one could argue that such films may serve to represent posthuman subjectivities. The review thus works to unpack the nuances of such subjectivity as it relates to issues of gender and class in the global South. It is theoretically anchored in work on transnationality as well as contemporary urban Indian femininity in the context of India and Nigeria in a globalised era. The review focuses on a scene in the film where a Nigerian Indian woman is convincing her Indian relative to accept a Nigerian woman as her daughter-in-law. In the scene she explains that Nigerian women and Indian women are the same when it comes to femininity. The paper unpacks how the film achieves the global transfer of contemporary urban femininity in the global South. It engages with Dosekun’s (2015) theorisation of the transferability of postfeminism via the media as a class issue. Conscious of the dangers of homogenising such iterations of femininity, emphasis is placed on the significance of nuance and context thereby noting similarity in practices across similar global South, postcolonial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The film industry in Nigeria, popularly referred to as Nollywood, is the world's third-largest film industry (based on the volume of films produced); however, this does not translate to real economic benefit. It is a highly informal industry created in an informal sector of the economy and addressed to a mass audience with different characteristics from those in the Anglo-American/Anglo-European field. This article argues that piracy is economically harmful to Nollywood. To substantiate this claim, we engage with the body of literature on piracy to understand what piracy is and how it works. The jurisprudence on the concept of piracy is discussed, first at a general level, before specifically discussing the case of Nigeria. An attempt will be made to measure piracy as a statistical phenomenon, comparing several excellent studies carried out in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in the world. The trends and lessons learned from these studies were critically considered in the Nigerian context. The impact of piracy was examined, identifying the different models that have successfully tackled piracy. We evaluate how piracy is tackled in the different levels of the Nigerian film industry, pointing out the distinction between legal rule and enforcement thereof and stressing how ignorance of copyright law, coupled with the specific cultural context of Nigeria, exacerbates the problem of piracy. Finally, workable solutions that could aid in curbing piracy in Nigeria were discussed. We conclude by advocating for an essential change of the mindset of the people, which can be achieved through aggressive educational campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cahiers d'Études Africaines is the property of Editions EHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Film-makers in Nigeria adopt new technologies from the United States and Europe and exploit copyright law in the process to protect their rights. Conversely, pirates, counterfeiters or bootleggers use new technologies as well to exploit the film industiy. In this article, copyright law in "Nollywood" and piracy are examined. Possible solutions are reviewed. Indeed, Nigeria can reap more economically from the film industiy through appropriate enforcement mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of Nollywood especially gender activists, have challenged its predominant, if not exclusive portrayal of women for its narrowly traditional occupational and domestic roles and images. This paper seeks to examine various ways women are depicted in Nollywood films, including physical appearance, domestic and family life, occupational life and interpersonal relationships over a 20 year period spanning the video film era. The research employed a quantitative content method to analyse 10 films while the coding sheet that contained established content categories served as the data gathering instrument. A multistage sampling technique was used to draw the sample. The findings revealed that although there is a higher percentage of women than men in Nollywood films, women still play diminished central roles, and continue to be portrayed less frequently in roles that reflect current social realities than men, especially regarding the professions. Nollywood continues its penchant of depicting successful and powerful women in social and domestic settings as dangerous and doomed for destruction. This characterisation apart from the potential of discouraging females from creating a niche for themselves, simultaneously severely hampers the critical role of generating new cohorts of outstanding independent and powerful females in business, politics or the professions. It can be concluded that the representation of women in Nollywood has not witnessed any radical departure from the traditional preconception of women roles in societies over the two decades. Roles and contemporary treatment of women in Nollywood films should rather emphasise, current accomplishments or successes of women in several spheres of life and do away with negative representations which only help in accentuating and perpetuating stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter, based on four sets of questionnaires and interviews dated 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2017, seeks to evaluate the impact of the language of Nigerian films on their reception among diasporic communities in the UK in the context of recently expressed fears concerning the future of Nigerian languages abroad. It investigates the degree of influence of language on viewers' motivations and practices, the role played by the cultural message of the language in identityreinforcement within the Nigerian community in diaspora, and the potential impact of these films on the revival of language and cultural practices among resettled communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before we can go on to evaluate the reception of films in Nigerian languages in France, we need to consider what type of quantitative and qualitative evidence might help us to assess whether the penetration of Nigerian films called Nollywood is a significant phenomenon in France. It can be argued that this cultural penetration started with free movies on the Internet, followed by individual initiatives and business ventures which facilitated the reception of Nigerian films by the Diaspora in currently estimated at 5 million. Despite the big market the diaspora and fans represent, it will be pertinent to ask why they watch films in Nigerian languages. The evidence for the reception of films in Nigerian languages in France will be measured with the data gathered from Cable television, Nollywood Week festivals in Paris, free movies on the Internet, the major languages used by filmmakers, exclusive interviews given to the author by Nigerian filmmakers and by audiences and fans of Nigerian films. All these factors are possible indicators that should help us to judge whether the reception of films in Nigerian languages in France is real, and, if so, how is it perceived among viewers and fans of Nollywood. In support of this view, two Nigerian movies screened during the Nollywood Week, among other special occasions, will highlight the linguistic penetration of Nollywood in France: Taxi driver Oko Ashawo by Daniel Oriaha and Phone Swap by Kunle Afolayan. The similarities between the two films are the languages used - Nigerian English, Pidgin and Yoruba for Taxi Driver and Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin and English for Phone Swap, and the French subtitles, which helped the audience to cross the cultural and language barrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The narrativity of the Benin language video-film as a bustling aspect of Nollywood (Nigerian film industry and tradition) carries with it certain folkloric tropes that the Benin people attach importance to as part of their cultural heritage. Regardless of the genre, some Benin video-films employ anthropomorphism to communicate vital socio-cultural messages that reaffirm the cultural ethos and values of the Benin people. This element, among other theatrical/filmic resources is used by popular culture producers in the Benin video culture to provide audience-friendly templates for edutainment, socialization, therapeutic interventions and spiritual rejuvenation in Benin society. It is within this dynamic compass of supernatural or mythical tropes that this article adopts the content analysis method to examine the anthropomorphic potentials in Benin video-films. In doing this, the discussion focuses on Okpaniya (dir. Ezekiel, 2003) as a means of exteriorizing certain layers of intentionalities as read from the actions and inactions of characters and how these textual referents speak to the making of entertainment and cultural products by some Nigerian (African) filmmakers, including Benin film producers. Consequently, Benin film content creators should increasingly integrate Benin values, norms and identity as exhibited in Okpaniya in their creative works to consolidate the Benin video film's presence in a glocalising Nollywood and propagate Benin language, history and culture on a wider but discursive space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yorùbá language, with its strong linguistic and cultural impacts in Africa and the Americas, faces imminent extinction, especially in Nigeria, where it counts the biggest number of speakers. It is no gainsaying then that Nollywood's production of historical classics in undiluted Nigerian Yorùbá language is playing the nationalist roles of rescuing and preserving the rich but threatened Yorùbá language and its culture. One of the ways Nollywood does that is through the use of witticism, especially, proverbs. The present paper analyzes some Yorùbá Nollywood canonic films and illustrates how their directors make use of strictly scripted films in Yorùbá language to preserve the authenticity of the language and bring to the fore many centuries of the ancient civilization of the Yorubas. Through a paremiological analysis of the richly coded Yorùbá language in the films, our arguments lay bare the meanings, the functions and the importance of proverbs in the oratory skills of the Yorubas. The analysis allows for a deep understanding of the ethnographical study of the values of the Yorubas in their various aspects of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Onions Edionwe's films, such as Echoes of a Kingdom, Arousa N'ohuan-ren, and Aisiokuoba, are notable documentaries, they represent an "insignificant" component of the total number of movies that have been made in the Benin or Edo language film section of the Nigerian film culture (Nollywood). A critical review of the Benin video culture indicates that a majority of the Benin film content creators tend to ignore the documentary genre. This article explores the reasons Benin filmmakers do not produce documentaries. Perhaps, what evidences the tendency is the observable preference of Benin filmmakers to make historical, musical, comic, or social movies because they fear that the audience might find documentary films uninteresting and distasteful. This is an unpleasant trend in spite of documentary film's potency as a narrative medium and its potentialities for developing the human-mind and society. It is against this background that I used a complementarity of the emic and etic approaches to canvass the need for Benin cineastes to increasingly turn their creative radars towards the documentary genre, which can be a powerful developer and re-enforcer of Benin socio-cultural practices in the age of globalisation. Towards this end, Benin filmmakers should be provided with requisite grants and/or production funds by relevant governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and organised private groups from within and outside the Benin locality to make films in the documentary format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theatre artiste, irrespective of the preferred medium of expressing his art be it stage, radio, television or film, has continued to function as a critic in the bid to occasion social change. The Nigerian video film, that accident of history referred to as Nollywood which has been made popular by Kenneth Nnebue's 1992 experimentation with Living in Bondage, has provided a veritable platform for such artistic expression. Apart from its economic potentials, Nollywood offers an avenue for encouraging attitudinal change in individuals as well as the promotion of corporate responsibility. This search for positive change is propagated through the employ of the satiric genre which lampoons such societal ills as greed, corruption, stigmatization, negligence of duty and illiteracy amongst others. It is for the foregoing that this study which uses the artistic and literary methodology, has examined the satiric content in such select Nollywood films as Police Recruit by Charles Inojie and Intelligent Mugu by Kalu Anya. The study reveals that satire has been used in the two films through its constituent elements of irony, burlesque, incongruity, sarcasm and exaggeration to stress the need for the institutionalisation of societal values so that individuals and corporate bodies do not act arbitrarily. The study recommends that the police force be reorganised in her recruitment procedure, training method and general system of operation for effective police service delivery. The study enjoins film makers to use the medium of satire in bringing to the fore anomalies in society. The study calls on film makers to adopt professional standards in such technical departments of production as casting for the success of these films derive in part from effective casting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cahiers d'Études Africaines is the property of Editions EHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Unlike Hollywood and Bollywood that have over several decades evolved clear and definite patterns of economic peculiarities and artistic traditions, Nollywood is still in its infancy in these matters. Nonetheless, there is the significant fact that it has taken Nollywood only a couple of decades to rise to its present commanding economic strength and global visibility, a feat unmatched by any other national film industry with perhaps the exception of the United States. This article examines the phenomenon that is Nollywood by posing and responding to the following questions: What is the scope of Nollywood? And where can one look for hopeful signs of its future growth, improvement and development? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that films are pieces of communication that attempt at simulation and that it represents efforts in Nigeria's motion picture industry to stimulate a simulation, making it obscene to a great extent. The author claims that film narratives radicalize the discourse by deconstructing the ideas of deviance and social control. The author concludes by suggesting that Canadian actor Keanu Reeves had gone beyond navel-gazing in his documentary film "Side by Side."

The language of Nigerian video films, its choice, and those of subtitling and dubbing, have long escaped scrutiny, and only attracted scholars' attention within the past ten years. The present study, based on the analysis of 19 films in English, French, Dutch, Igbo and Yoruba and on data gathered from three personal surveys and interviews dated 2009, 2012 and 2013, seeks to add to this burgeoning field by considering whether the language issue hinders the reception of Nigerian films outside their linguistic area, and surveying what has been done so far in that regard. Its findings first reveal that, while European audiences seem to prefer dubbing, Africans opt for subtitling; they also confirm that in the end, the true success of Nigerian films, whether subtitled or dubbed, will be measured in the way they cut across cultures, not just languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]