Yoruba Movies – The growing popularity of West African Yoruba Movies

November 14th, 2009

Yoruba Movies – The Rise of West African Movies and Popularity

What makes African movies and especially Yoruba Movies as well as Nollywood movies so popular is the story. Nigerian Yoruba Movies are very popular outside of Africa in countries in Western Europe as well as the US and the Caribbean. African movies are now making headlines and moves beyond its origin continent and are growing in popularity daily.

Nollywood is currently just behind Hollywood and Bollywood as the biggest movie distributors in the world. African movies are gaining attention worldwide with films from Western African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria being sold alongside Hollywood’s finest productions. Anyone who does not appreciate these movies if missing out on great African movie culture.

In African it is in the daytime that Yoruba Movies are at their most popular as they are preferred by a more female audience. They are now earning International attention despite the majority of these movies taking and comedic theme and their somewhat low production in comparison with movies you may find in Hollywood. Most of Africa’s movies are formed in Nigeria and Yoruba Movies are amongst the most popular. Not only did they spread beyond Western African the Africa as a whole but they have spread worldwide. Nigeria, Togo and Ghana lead the charge in the popularity of African movies. In one of only a handful of cinemas in Nigeria, a cinema in Lagos screen Yoruba Movies alongside Hollywood blockbusters.

Most Yoruba movies are enjoyed and consumed in the home with family and friends. If you have not experienced or seen movies from Africa whether they are Nigerian, Yoruba Movies or a Ghanaian film you can view the films at your pleasure at http://www.yorubamovies.info

yoruba movies

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Access Nollywood – Quick Facts

October 26th, 2009

Some Simple Facts About Nollywood

Nollywood is the 3rd largest film industry in the world behind Hollywood and Bollywood

Nollywood films are made on shoe string budgets with an average movie only taking around 10 day to complete with a cost of just $15,000

In only 30 years Nollywood has gone from zero to bring a $250 million dollar a year business.

Nollywood produces more movies yearly than Hollywood and Bollywood

Yoruba Movies are very popular in the home video arena.

There are around 300+ producers who churn out movies at an astonishing rate.

30+ new titles are released in Nigerian shops and markets every week where an normal film will sell about 50,000 copies.

Movies revolve round issues of romance, comedy, the occult, dodgy cops, prostitution and HIV/AIDS/

Nigerian stars are well known in Ghana, Zambia and beyond.

Star actors sometimes work on several movies at the same time.

Yoruba Movies are popular and growing in popularity in Europe and America.

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Laid the foundation for Nollywood

August 10th, 2010

Laying the path for nollywood

The relevance of the movie profession in the effort toward realization of peace and harmony in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. One of those that made that relevancy a reality is Charles Olumo, the Abeokuta-born prominent Yoruba artist that has successfully spent 54 years showcasing Yoruba culture through movies.
The 83-year-old man, popularly called Agbako, the movie name that shot him into the limelight, spoke to Bashir Adefaka in Lagos recently. Excerpts:

What can you tell us about your background?

I was born in Abeokuta and had my early education there. When I was in school I was into sports because I ran a lot and did well in other sporting activities. This year I’m 83 years precisely.

When did you join the movie industry and why did you choose to play the role of Agbako (trouble) in the many movies you partook in the past?

First and foremost, I must tell you that today I am one of the happiest living persons on earth because I live to realise that I am still alive.

I embraced the Theatre in 1956 and I chose to be Agbako (Misfortune) in movies because I wanted to drive home a point that bad and good go together. As there are bad people so there are a lot who are wonderfully good.

My bad role in movies was to enable people identify bad people and be able to understand also what is bad. It was also my idea to make people know the consequences of being evil.

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Nollywood opens a new window on Africa in Canada

March 1st, 2010

At Conie’s African Market in Burnaby, two customers watch Ahonhom Bone, a movie in the Akan language of northern Ghana. The viewers utter a collective sigh as African scenery is blacked out by the rolling credits. Although they may feel pangs for African landscapes, the store owner, Comfort Sam, notes that her movie customers are from all over Africa and the Caribbean, and are sometimes people who have family members of African descent.

“All of them are our favourites,” Sam says about the Nollywood movies in her store. “They remind us of home. Here, we are homesick.”

Nollywood is Nigeria’s multimillion-dollar movie industry, which produces more than 1,000 titles a year. It’s the world’s third-biggest, after Hollywood and Bollywood. Nollywood movies—offering fictional representations of Africans in their homelands with dialogue in African languages, English, or French—are shot straight to DVD and distributed internationally. They’re made on a tight deadline, two weeks or so of shooting, and an even tighter budget, up to a few thousand dollars. They’re often poorly shot, using digital cameras, and badly edited, with substandard sound quality, but these are Africans “telling our own stories our own way”, as director Bond Emeruwa says in the 2007 documentary This Is Nollywood.

Nollywood exploded into being with the 1992 production of Living in Bondage by director Chris Obi Rapu. But this was not the first movie made in Nigeria. The Nigerian film industry had existed since the ’60s but had not made much headway due to the high expense of production. In 1992, businessman Kenneth Nnebue needed to get rid of several thousand blank VHS tapes when the opportunity to make a movie became available. Living in Bondage was dubbed in widely spoken pidgin English and made cheaply available.

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Nigerian music artistes are singing trash and smiling to the banks –Alariwo of Africa

February 8th, 2010

Rotimi Etumudon-Martins, a.k.a Alariwo of Africa, has made his mark on the Nigerian music scene. He tells CHUX OHAI why he is coming back to music after a long break.

You have been away from the music scene for a long time. What have you been doing?

I have been busy. I‘ve been busy in the studio working on my new project. I am almost done; the title of the album is ‘Back on Track‘. It is a 16-track album. When the time comes, people will understand why I have been away.

You recorded your first music album in 1998. Why has it taken so long to come back to the scene?

I released my second album titled ‘Boju Boju‘ in 2002 and since 2002, I have not another album. Now I am releasing my third album in 2010, eight years after, the noisemaker is back. I wanted to take my time and I have been busy all the while. I have been anchoring events as an MC and I am into event packaging. I run a music studio of my own and I am equally a broadcaster. I have been making noise here and there and positively too. Music is my calling and I felt I should take my time as the industry has become more competitive. I love competition and the competition is getting annoying, hence I have to do it right.

What do you mean by the competition getting annoying?

It is getting annoying in the sense that it is getting more interesting. Some people are playing trash, but they are selling. I think these days it is about singing nonsense to make money. That is not the kind of music I want to do, I am too mature for that. I would say with confidence and without apology that I am a veteran in this industry, in my own little way. I have to take my time to come up with something very creative and that is exactly what I am doing.

If some of your colleagues, I suppose younger colleagues, have been singing trash and smiling to the banks, don‘t you think you should toe the same line?

I am a godfather in the industry. I don‘t need to sing trash because people are singing trash and smiling to the banks. And I can tell you that 85 percent of them are doing well, it is only 15 percent that are singing trash. Most of them however are very creative and making sense with their music. I don‘t have to imitate them. When I released ‘Yawa go gaz‘, most of them were either in primary school or secondary school. I wanted to take my time; I didn‘t want to rush anything. When the time is right people will decide, I am a matured artist so I have to play mature music.

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Conflict in Nollywood

January 3rd, 2010

Ike becomes factional president of AGN
The movie body known as the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) has been a field of battle among its members over who becomes the president or not. Some time this year, an election was conducted,

which produced Segun Arinze as the factional president of the body. Kanayo O. Kanayo and his faction disagreed with the emergence of Arinze as the president and he declared himself as the president. In the middle of this ongoing battle, another election was conducted producing Emeka Ike as the AGN president to the discontent of the likes of Arinze. Embattled Arinze attempted to halt the caretaker committee of the guild from conducting the election that produced actor Ike. Arinze, last month, was appointed to head the alleged Government of National Unity set up by the Ifeanyi Dike-led Board of Trustees of the guild, with Ike as his deputy as a way of moving the troubled guild forward. Arinze allegedly stormed the guild’s secretariat with a team of policemen from Area D, Mushin, with the intention of stopping the election. However, he failed as the Kanayo team, armed with a court order, refused to be intimidated.

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The Suicide Mission in Nollywood

December 27th, 2009

In Nollywood, the second largest movie industry in the world, dog eats dog. And it is news as big as man biting dog. As they say in journalism, it’s no news for a dog to bite a man. After the pioneers and veterans of Nollywood, Mercy Johnson is a favourite actress of many people, yet she is one of the most scandalised in the business. A promising actress, there is no doubt that she is crying when she is doing that on set. This is one of her shocking dog-eat-dog experiences, told a newspaper: “Let me tell you this story. When I was heading for Benin, I was supposed to leave at a particular time but I didn’t leave. My friends kept calling me and that’s why I am telling you that people can be terrible.

They were calling me and asking to know when I was planning to leave and I told them I wasn’t sure yet. I eventually decided to leave on a Monday with an 11.45 a.m. flight. Do you know that at precisely 11.45 a.m., a woman appeared at the airport screaming at the top of her voice that I should leave her husband alone. She told officials at the airport that she was hundred percent sure that I was aboard the flight.” There are similar stories on some other Nollywood people, indicating how competitive the industry has become, and the need for a unified Nollywood to address its mounting challenges. Mercy is one of the Nollywood people I have been studying to develop the characters of a novel I am planning to write on the industry. Another person is Mike Ezuruonye. I like it that outside the “scandals”, some of which look too silly to believe, Mercy has defied another of Nollywood’s dirty fads to commence marriage processes to her fiancé.

cont… http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=162550

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Pushing the Nigerian motion picture industry to the next level

December 3rd, 2009

THE staple of the growing stand-up act in Nigeria is taking pot shots at Nollywood, its characters, and in particular the way the movies are produced. One particular anecdote is that of Jim Iyke’s telephonic conversation with Mofe Damijo who was on his way to London when Jim’s call got through to him. On learning that Damijo will be staying three days in the United Kingdom, Iyke asked whether he was with his camcorder. Answering in the affirmative, Iyke advised Damijo to shoot about ‘40 scenes’ and ‘other actions’ before returning to Nigeria. Iyke believed this would enable the two to produce tens of movies and of course earn good money from selling the movies!

Although very derogatory and the story makes the audience reel off in deep laughter because the joke bears some semblance to what plays out in the real world of Nollywood movie production, more salutary stories have been told about Nollywood, and these stories not only raise the profile of the industry, but also that of the country. Nollywood is an industry that Nigerians ought to be proud of….

cont … http://www.modernghana.com/movie/6004/3/nollywood-and-africamagic-pushing-the-nigerian-mot.html

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Nollywood to Undergo Film Industry Training

December 1st, 2009

Nigeria is the world’s second largest film-producing country but, according to the managing director of Del York International, Linus Idahosa, there is a need “to stem the tide of marginal competence in the (Nigerian film) industry”.

With this in view, Del York International is partnering with the prestigious New York Film Academy to conduct film-making and acting training programmes in Nigeria.

Del York International hosted journalists in Abuja, on Tuesday, November 24, 2009. The press briefing held at the International Conference Centre, and was attended by Nollywood actors, Stephanie Okereke and Francis Duru. Miss Okereke, who is a graduate of the New York Film Academy, spoke about the success of her debut work, “Through the Glass” – a film she wrote, directed, co-produced and starred in.

The special guest speakers were the Minister for Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili; and Emeka Mba, the director-general of the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board.

Mrs. Akunyili stressed that the film industry is one more tool in laundering Nigeria’s image. Making reference to the controversial Sony advert and Hollywood film “District 9″, she implored “Nollywood, please help us to tell our own stories.”

Mr. Mba pointed out that local storytelling could be inadequate, citing the difference in the portrayal of magic and witchcraft in the Harry Potter series and Nollywood films.

The Del York-organised programme is the first outing of the film academy to Africa and will cater for 1000 students in both Abuja (February) and Lagos (March). Tuition for each student is $3,500.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5489926-146/story.csp

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Nigeria Films and the Image of Nigeria

November 13th, 2009

For many years, the image of Nigeria has been a soiled one. The people are misunderstood, and the image stands firm. The image has been built throughout the years, and culture and history has combined as powerful forces to form the image of Nigeria. The rest of the world thinks of this country as poor, illiterate, and slow in advancement.

This is unfortunate because this image is mainly formed by stereotypical perceptions of the population in the country. In other words, it’s due to a lack of understanding for the people residing in Nigeria. People outside of this country do not truly understand the culture, and this leads to misconceptions. The people of this country understand that it’s going to take a lot of time and resources to help reshape the image that has taken root throughout the years. For this reason, they turn to popular culture – educating through movies and films.

Films are one of the fastest way to communicate important messages across the globe. Because they are created to entertain, they often attract huge crowds. A well made, award winning film can attract a lot of attention from the media. They are showcased in film festivals, and people from other nations can exchange ideas and appreciate the works of others. Through this manner, perceptions of each and every culture starts to change. From the films, there is an exchange of information – information about one culture with another.

Such information is conveyed through films in two different manners – the graphic images, and the music. Music, as everyone knows, is universal. By listening to the sounds in the films, the audience gets a good understanding of the feelings of the characters within the film. Thus, in a non-verbal manner, they are able to understand the emotions of the people belonging to a certain culture.

Graphic images are more straight forward. They convey messages of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. Nigerian films are starting to portray the lives of the young living in their country. Such films provide insight as to what is happening within the country. The cities are starting to flourish, and many of the young and able are moving into the cities for a higher quality of life. The lives of these young people provide rich content for the films.

The movies show that Nigeria is no longer a country that is lacking behind, and slow in advancing. Due to the evolution of technology, the young has become more and more tech savvy. Harnessing the power of technology, many has been able to make progress in leaps and bounds with their careers. It is a sure sign that the country is thriving.

The active movie industry is another indication that the country is doing well. More and more talented artists are coming forward to become directors, actors and actresses. Armed with great story lines, they have been known to shoot high quality movies even with a limited budget. It just shows how resourceful and creative the young citizens of Nigeria can be. The future looks brighter than ever.

Adetola Banbe is the owner of a site that deals in Nigeria Movies and Nigeria Films website.

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The Rise of Nigeria Nollywood Movies

November 13th, 2009

Nollywood is the name of Nigeria’s movie industry. Movies and TV programs are non-existent in Nigeria before the 1960s. Since then, the government has spurred the growth of television broadcasting with strong support. In the 1980s, every state in Nigeria has its own broadcasting station. This sets the stage for TV programs and movie productions. In a few short decades, Nollywood has managed to surpass all expectations.

Movies produced by Nollywood are very different from those produced by Hollywood. In Hollywood, there are easily accessible studios equipped with the latest technology and props for easy shooting of movies. But in Nigeria, movie production can take place everywhere – from homes, hotels to public areas. As such, Nollywood movies depend heavily on two things to be successful – a strong storyline and great actors and actresses.

In fact, in many of the African countries, Nollywood movies outperform movies produced by Hollywood. That is because audiences can relate better to the content in the movies. Nigerian directors are also quick to adopt any upcoming technology and techniques to shoot higher quality movies. In fact, they are well known for their innovative movie production techniques.

Fast forward to today, it is not uncommon to see Nigeria movies gaining popularity very quickly – thanks to the internet. The internet has leveled the playing field for all the major players in the movie industry by allowing web visitors to gain easy access to the movies. With just a browser and a high speed connection, anyone can log on to a movies website and watch a streaming movie. This means that anyone with a great movie can compete for the attention of movie fans. It doesn’t matter if the movies come from Hollywood, Bollywood or Nollywood. If it’s a great movie, fans will talk about it online, and it will gain popularity very quickly.

In part, this is due to the viral nature of the internet. It’s just so simple to share anything on the internet these days. One can share bookmarks, digital files, music files, and even video clips.

With the rise of social websites, web visitors are able to stream movies, voice their own opinions, and share the links with other friends in their own network. If a movie is bad, rest assure that the community learns about it very quickly. If it’s good, prepare to experience the full force of the viral effect.

As the internet continues to grow at an unprecedented speed, Nollywood grows with it as well. That means the industry is in need of talented actors and actresses to meet the rising demand for Nollywood movies. These actors and actresses can become famous and acquire fans very quickly. Fans will be able to gossip about their idols online – what they like or dislike about an actor or actress. Actors and actresses may then act on the feedback to improve their acting skills.

For sure, Nollywood is a powerful uprising force to reckon with. With its pool of enterprising directors and talented actors and actresses, Nollywood looks set to become a power house in the movie industry.

Adetola Banbe is the founder of Nigeria Forum and Nigeria Videos website.

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