Many thanks to our panelists, sponsors, and everyone who attended the Symposium. Below are some press coverage of the event:
Invitation to 23 March Opening Ceremony
19 Mar
You are invited to the Opening Ceremony at 10AM prompt on Wednesday 23 March at Afe Babalola Auditorium at the University of Lagos. Prof. Jonathan Haynes will make the keynote presentation: Reading Nollywood as a ‘Popular Art’: Class Character and the Campus Film.
Click here for the rest of the programme for 23-25 March.
Updated program of events
13 Mar
The program of events has been updated with sessions and speakers. Click here for the latest version. The conveners look forward to seeing you on 23 March at Unilag.
Final reminder: Proposals and abstracts due Monday
17 FebThe conveners have been receiving proposals on a variety of topics — from Reading Nollywood as a “Popular Art”: Class character and the campus film to Re-reading Nollywood: Neo-Primitivism and Tunde Kelani’s Quasi-Movie.
Become part of the discussion by Monday, February 21. Click here for submission guidelines and the Call for Papers.
Reminder: Abstracts and proposals due February 21
7 Feb
Please click on the image above to download the official CFP.
Reminder: Proposals and abstracts due February 21
27 JanA reminder that proposals and abstracts are due no later than February 21 to [email protected] and [email protected]:
- Click here to review the Call for Papers
- Send a title and an abstract (500 words or less), typed single-space in Times New Roman, 11 point font.
- State the name(s) of the author(s), institutional affiliation(s), postal and e-mail addresses, and phone number(s).
- Abstracts are to be sent by MS Word attachment only.
We are looking forward to reading everyone’s submissions!
234NEXT: ‘Tunde Kelani looks to reinvent Nollywood’
8 DecThe article that I wrote for the Sunday edition of 234NEXT should start the discussion on the accessibility of popular culture in veteran director Tunde Kelani‘s struggle to control the distribution of his films. You may read the original web version here, and I have also posted the text below:
Tunde Kelani looks to reinvent Nollywood
By Bic Leu
December 5, 2010 12:47AM
“Let’s do that again!” is a familiar refrain on the set of Tunde Kelani’s new film, ‘Ma’ami’, starring Funke Akindele in the title role. Over the past month of shooting in Lagos and Abeokuta, ‘Ma’ami’ cast and crew have witnessed a meticulous Kelani on a quest for perfection, his directions methodically punctuated by the clapping of the slate as it records the increasing number of takes per scene.
Kelani belongs to a new set of Nigerian directors who combine well-trained professionals with the latest technology to produce high quality films that adhere to international standards. These rising directors–among them Kunle Afolayan of ‘The Figurine’ and Andy Amadi Okoroafor of the upcoming ‘Relentless’–thus challenge the stereotype of Nollywood production as a haphazard exercise in guerilla filmmaking. Kelani has distinguished himself as the most experienced of the group, as evidenced by his 1978 diploma in filmmaking from the London Film School and by his work in the 1980s as a celluloid cinematographer for Nigerian television and film productions. Since establishing Mainframe Productions in Oshodi, Lagos in 1992, Kelani has consistently released films like ‘Thunderbolt’ and ‘Saworoide’, which have become favourites in Yoruba households across Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
Mobile cinema
Kelani, however, has not yet seen the monetary rewards that such popularity promises. Pirates cut into his profits by making and selling illegal copies of his movies, often within as few as three days after each film’s release into the market. “We lost everything because of the piracy,” Kelani sighed, while lamenting the financial damages suffered after the release of ‘Arugbá’, his most recently completed work. Piracy is a common method of infringement upon the intellectual property of the entire industry, but Kelani is ahead of many of his peers in finding a solution to this problem. He has refused to release ‘Ma’ami’ on VCD or DVD—a surprising move, given Nollywood’s distinction as a video film industry and given the focus of its distribution networks on home entertainment consumption. Kelani instead plans to solicit government and private sector sponsorship to fund a series of free mobile cinema screenings throughout Lagos State.
Kelani has already tested the logistics of this model by petitioning Lagos State Government to fund free screenings of ‘Arugbá’ from February to May 2009 at informal open-air venues in 57 local government and local council development areas. These events reached over 2,500 viewers. Public service announcements from the Lagos State Government were inserted at the beginning and in the middle of the film, educating viewers about environmental sanitation, tax payment, and land speculation. Kelani is not motivated by large profits; he only wants enough money to cover production expenses. His primary goal is to reach “the critical mass, the audience that I have at home.”
Kelani’s long-term plan for combating piracy will focus on revitalising cinema-going culture in Lagos. This is an imposing challenge on two fronts. Most functioning cinemas in the city are located on the Island, while the majority of Kelani’s audience lives on the Mainland. In light of Lagos’ atrocious traffic congestion, these theatres are therefore inaccessible to most would-be viewers. The high price of cinema tickets (N1,000–N1,500 per adult) compared to the relatively low price of a VCD (N100–N250 at Idumota Market on Lagos Island) makes cinema-going costs additionally prohibitive to most Lagosians.
Lagos City Cinema Project
But Kelani is optimistic. In September, he launched the Lagos City Cinema Project by submitting proposals to build small cinema houses in 10 local government areas, with the ultimate goal of building one in each of the 57 local government areas. Citing viewers’ favourable responses to the government messages inserted in the Arugbá mobile cinema screenings, Kelani markets his project as “a tool for community development” and “an easy and effective instrument of mass mobilisation at local government-level.” One local government area–Onigbongbo–has responded to the request by offering Kelani the use of its four existing viewing centers, informal screening rooms that seat 50 people each. Kelani is excited to integrate these centers into his model, and he hopes that the absence of new construction costs will enable him to lower ticket prices at this site. He even plans to create jobs by engaging area youth to work at the viewing centers.
Tunde Kelani’s efforts to reinvent the Nollywood distribution model have the capacity to effect wider economic development. In August 2010, the first job summit organised by the National Economic Management Team and sponsored by the World Bank acknowledged that the creative industries are among the most vibrant sectors in world trade and that Nigeria has not yet reached its full potential for development and export in these areas. The summit also agreed that only a comprehensive strategy could tackle the major challenges that are confronting the industry, such as piracy, low quality of production standards, as well as marketing and distribution linkages. Kelani’s progressive innovations may therefore set the standard for the rest of Nollywood and propel Nigeria toward a new role on the world economic stage.
Bic Leu is a US Fulbright Fellow researching the social impact of Nollywood at the University of Lagos. She regularly records her observations at http://www.findingnollywood.com.
*NEXT’s interview with Tunde Kelani will be published next Sunday.
Call for Papers ~ Reading & Producing Nollywood: An International Symposium
30 NovSUMMARY:
Conveners: Professor Duro Oni (University of Lagos),
Professor Onookome Okome (University of Alberta/Pan African University),
Bic Leu (US Fulbright Fellow/University of Lagos)
Venue: University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria
Dates: Wednesday, March 23–Friday, March 25, 2011
Deadline for submission: Monday, February 21, 2011 to [email protected] and [email protected]
ABOUT:
Everyone in Nigeria has an opinion on and about Nollywood. This is also true of Africans and those in the African Diaspora. Opinion expressed by each respondent depends on a number of factors, some of which may have little or nothing to do with the content of Nollywood films or the industry itself. This is partly because Nollywood can no longer be ignored and partly because even for those who wish the industry a bad turn, all such predictions have failed.
For those who referred to this cinematic practice as a “peddler’s trade,” the reality now is that this “trade” has taken on the narrative of the Nigerian nation as a cultural and political entity. The narrative machine that it has generated has permeated all aspects of the Nigeria world, making the skeptics of its narrative focus and style furious at it for creating what some of them call “false culture”. Comments about what Nollywood presents to the public are therefore not always salutary. If anything, they are often acerbic. In fact, these comments cast doubt on both the narrative practices, the content of the narratives as social documents and the very industry itself.
Among the intellectual class in Nigeria, Nollywood films are more or less street art, one which should have no social import. One argument is that the makers of Nollywood are often seduced by quick financial turn over, and for this reason the content of Nollywood films is often secondary to ideologies and other cultural matters. Seduced by the allure of exaggerated earning reported for the industry, government cultural agencies have embraced Nollywood with care and some caution as they fight to have some of the benefits accruing to the industry. For operators of these agencies, the bottom line is expressed in the entrepreneurial sprits of workers in the industry, something that is lacking in the larger Nigerian society. Elsewhere in Africa, and in the African Diaspora, Nollywood has not been very well received either. Francophone filmmakers derided the style of this cinematic tradition until recently, and only began to rethink this visual practice when it became part and parcel of M-Net screening schedule, a feat which the Francophone film industry has yet to achieve. Even then the suspicions about the industry are still rife.
At the heart of the matter is, to repeat this point, that Nollywood is amateurish, crude in part and stylistically reminiscent of the pre-silent film era. Yet, not even the most avid critic denies the popularity of these films. Indeed, it is this popularity that has given critics and other cultural enthusiasts the steam and energy to think of this media as a viable medium of narrating contemporary Nigeria while at the same time denying it of the very social presence it commands among it teeming clientele.
This symposium is designed to investigate two crucial issues of negation-the perception and reading of Nollywood as a cultural practice. It will ask questions such as: How do we read Nollywood as culture and as an industry that produces culture? Even if it is intellectually justifiable to read Nollywood side by side other cinematic practices such as Hollywood and Bollywood, can such pairing bring out what Nollywood really represents to those for whom the films are made? Is it possible to read Nollywood outside the framework of popular culture? As popular culture, what critical category do we need to read it as an urban African art?
The conveners solicit proposals and abstracts from a broad spectrum dealing with the debate around “reading Nollywood”. Although not exclusive to the interests of the conveners, proposals and abstracts dealing with these themes are especially welcomed: the sociality of the art of Nollywood, Nollywood films and contemporary Nigerian culture; Nollywood and the art of the popular in Africa; Nollywood and the African cinema; the art of story-telling in Nollywood; genre and the Nollywood film; Nollywood in the city and the city in Nollywood; Nollywood and the economy of the occult; Nollywood abroad; politics and governance in Nollywood films; women behind the camera and in Nollywood films; and towards an epistemic framework for “reading” narrativity and locality in Nollywood films.
GUIDELINES:
Proposals and abstracts should be sent no later than February 21, 2011 to: [email protected] and [email protected].
- Send a title and an abstract (500 words or less), typed single-space in Times New Roman, 11 point font.
- State the name(s) of the author(s), institutional affiliation(s), postal and e-mail addresses, and phone number(s).
- Abstracts are to be sent by MS Word attachment only.
Call for papers will be posted soon
10 NovPlease check back by the end of the week for more details!
Reading & Producing Nollywood: An International Symposium 