Write a research article that goes into further detail about the term “Nigerian cinema.”This 5-page (1,500+ words), double-spaced written assignment is due THURSDAY, APRIL 11 at 3:30 p.m. You will turn it in electronically on Canvas. You have more than a month to work on this assignment, so we will NOT be accepting late assignments.
Nigerian popular cinema, or “Nollywood”, emerged in the early 1990s and thrived into the mid-2000s. This “home video” era of film production and consumption created a large talent pool and a large audience for commercial films produced in Nigeria. In the last 15 years, Nigerian cinema has seen the emergence of “New Nollywood”, with higher-budget productions exhibited in newly constructed movie theaters; starting around 2018 these “New Nollywood” films have received funding and distribution from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Around this same time, a small but significant number of filmmakers emerged who wanted to create something different, and who are in the process of developing a Nigerian art cinema.
Your paper will draw on four sources:
The Film History textbook section on “The Improbable Rise of Nollywood” in chapter 26.
The documentary Nollywood Babylon (Ben Addelman & Samir Mallal, 2008), 1 hour 14 minutes. You can find the film on the National Film Board of Canada’s website: https://www.nfb.ca/film/nollywood_babylon/Links to an external site.Links to an external site.
The 2017 article “Access Nollywood” by Emily Witt.
The March 14 lecture of this class.
Your paper should compare three movements within Nigerian cinema:
Nigerian popular cinema produced between 1992 and 2008 (the “home video” era), referred to as Nollywood, or sometimes today as Old Nollywood. (The film Nollywood Babylon will be a key source for information about this period, but the Emily Witt article also has some useful information.)
New Nollywood films produced since 2008 that have higher budgets and that are shown in movie theaters and on streaming services like Netflix. (The article by Emily Witt will be a key source for writing about this period, but her article was written before the advent of streaming, a development that will be covered in the lecture.)
Recent Nigerian art cinema that is shown on the international film festival circuit. (The lecture on March 14 will cover this movement.)
Your discussion of each of these three movements should compare production, distribution & exhibition, and film content and style. There might be other cultural contexts that you will want to include.
Just to be clear about how your paper should be organized: your paper should consist of an introduction; a section on Nollywood of the “home video” era” in which you discuss production, distribution & exhibition, and film content and style; a section on New Nollywood in which you discuss production, distribution & exhibition, and film content and style; and a section on Nigerian art cinema in which you discuss production, distribution & exhibition, and film content and style; and a conclusion.
NOTES
Italicize film titles.
A page of text should be more than 300 words, so your document should be over 1,500 words. Don’t mess around with margins and font size!
You should not consult any other sources, and you do not need a works cited page. IF YOU INCLUDE MATERIAL THAT DID NOT COME FROM THE FOUR SOURCES LISTED ABOVE, WE WILL ASSUME YOU USED AI TO HELP WRITE YOUR PAPER.
This should all be your own individual work, and you should not use any AI assistance. Any plagiarism or use of AI will result in an F for the course, and a referral to the university.
Give parenthetical page numbers and time codes for references. MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE MANY CONCRETE REFERENCES TO THE TEXTBOOK, THE DOCUMENTARY, THE ARTICLE, AND THE LECTURE IN YOUR PAPER.
EXAMPLES: “In most of sub-Saharan Africa, there are no movie theaters outside of large cities (Film History, 596), and as of 2008, in Nigeria’s largest city of 14 million people, there were only three functioning movie theaters (20:06).”
“The actress Uche Jumbo describes Nollywood cinema as ‘Africans telling African stories’ (4:22).”
“Despite an economic recovery after Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, as of 2016 the poverty rate was still 61% (Witt, 96).”
“The 2023 film Mami Wata won awards at both the Sundance Film Festival and FESPACO, Africa’s oldest film festival (lecture).”
