Welcome to Nollywood
(DVD)
DIRECTED BY - Jamie Meltzer
Welcome to Nollywood takes you inside the Nigerian film industry, which has exploded in the last ten years. Now the most popular cinema in all of West Africa - more popular even than imports of Hollywood or Bollywood films - the Nigerian film industry has distinguished itself by shooting all films (called video-films) on digital video. This has allowed production schedules to be compressed (films are shot in several days) and immediately brought to market (distribution consists of bringing films to Idumota electronics market in Lagos and selling them for home-viewing). The sheer volume of Nigerian video-films is staggering: one estimate has a film being produced for each day of the year. Nollywood is now the third largest film industry in the world, generating 286 million dollars per year for the Nigerian economy. And yet this vibrant, profitable industry is virtually unknown outside of Africa.
GENRES - documentary, international
Film Info
RUNTIME - 58 minutes
RATING - Not Rated
YEAR - 2007
Director
Producer
Producer
Editor
Cinematographer
Cinematographer
Cinematographer
Associate Producer
FESTIVALS
- Berks Movie Madness 2008 (Reading, United States)
- Mendocino Film Festival 2008 (Mendocino, United States)
- New York African Film Festival 2008 (New York, United States)
- Pop Montreal 2008 (Montreal, Canada)
- The Institute of Contemporary Arts 2008 (London, United Kingdom)
- The Institute of Contemporary Arts 2008 (London, United Kingdom)
- AFI Film Festival 2007 (Los Angeles, United States)
- Avignon Film Festival 2007 (Avignon, France)
- Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2007 (Durham, United States)
- Harlem Parks Film Festival 2007 (New York, United States)
Awards
- ReelWorld Award for Outstanding International Documentary (Winner)
2008 ReelWorld Film Festival (Toronto, Canada)
Press
Director Jamie Meltzer paints an astounding backdrop. Roger Corman would swoon at the DIY antics employed by Nigerian moviemakers Churning out nearly 2,500 straight-to-video releases a year, they've made the West African nation the worlds third-largest movie market after the U.S. and India.
-Dan Ayer, Time Out New York
Relentlessly entertaining and informative...Welcome to Nollywood boasts wall-to-wall bravado filtered through African-style entrepreneurship: Hook any of the producer-directors profiled here to a generator and the energy might just off set global reliance on oil."
-Lisa Nesselson, Variety