SOAS Research Online

Abstract

One of the most striking stories in recent global film history is the dramatic rise of the Nigerian “video film” industry, dubbed Nollywood, a prolific low-budget film industry based in Africa’s most populous country. Turning out over a thousand feature films a year, the Nigerian film industry relies mostly on digital video technology and “straight to video” releases, which are sold on DVD and video CD in the informal economy of the west African market.1 A former British colony, Nigeria, was cobbled together from around 400 different ethnicities and language groups, the largest of which are Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. After gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria suffered a civil war, from 1967 until 1970, and a series of military coups. Now a federation of 36 states, the country is in its third period of civilian rule, which began in 1999 with the handover of the military to a democratically elected government.