Producer Paul Julius is confident that the tens of thousands of dollars he has spent producing the soap opera “Tomorrow’s Tears” will be recouped, no matter the electricity shortages, lack of investors or grease-palmed government officials hampering his shooting schedule.
Fighting to be heard over a steady stream of traffic and actors complaining about the lack of food, money and air conditioning, Mr. Julius explained the plot of his soap, which he hopes to sell to local TV stations. “I changed the subject from the normal stuff: blood, magic, stepmothers, etc.,” he said. “This is going to be about real-life issues.”
Mr. Julius is an up-and-coming player in Nigeria’s film and television industry, known as Nollywood, which has grown from its infancy in the 1980s into the one of the world’s biggest movie industries, but is facing some real-life issues of its own.
In 2006, nearly 900 movies, almost all straight-to-video, were shot in Nigeria, trailing only India and almost doubling Hollywood’s total for the same year, according to a Unesco report released this month. Currently around 40 movies are shot every month in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, not counting the dozens of television dramas that are also shot here. The industry generates an estimated $250 million a year, and is popular throughout Africa and immigrant enclaves in Europe and the U.S.
But rampant piracy means substantial losses for producers and directors already operating on tight budgets. Understaffed and bribe-ready police means copyright enforcement is minimal. Inadequate roadways inhibit a small distribution network itching to grow. Constant electricity outages stall production schedules. These problems threaten to derail the industry.
Nigeria’s messy and often corrupt oil industry drives much of what happens in this country. It is the biggest oil producer in Africa, and as much as 95% of the country’s export earnings come from oil. Nigeria has taken in roughly $400 billion in oil-generated revenue since 1970 but the standard of living for most Nigerians has actually decreased.
Nonetheless, the country’s residents have an impressive appetite for movies. The most successful Nollywood movies are often melodramas like “Living in Bondage” and “Domitilla,” filled with adultery, bribery and elements of local mysticism.
A comedy, however, may have given Nollywood its best chance at international exposure. “Usuofia in London,” about a Nigerian man who lands in the big city straight from his native village, may be the best-selling Nollywood movie to date, with an estimated 500,000 copies sold. Only a handful of Nigerian movies have made it to international film festivals, such as “The Rivals,” directed by Aquila Njamah, which was shown at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2007.
Most Nigerian movies are produced fast and cheap, shot in a few weeks for $15,000 to $25,000, then roughly edited and handed off to marketers and eventually street-side vendors, or video clubs, as they are known locally. Financiers, usually friends or family members of the producer or director, want to see their investments recouped and care little for artistic exploration or high-quality technical effects.
Directors are under pressure to keep each movie on schedule and under budget. Profits, when made, are small. Producers estimate that as much as 70% of their yearly revenue is lost to piracy. “I would say the biggest challenge facing the industry at the moment is lack of structure, and a high level of informality,” said Emeka Mba, the chairman of the National Film and Video Censors Board, the Nigerian movie industry’s main regulatory body.
There is no formal distribution network for Nollywood producers. A finished movie in Lagos is burned onto around 15,000 DVDs with no copy protection and released into the market. If it’s a hit, demand swells. Vendors need more copies. But the producers often can’t keep up. So the movie is copied by pirates and thrown back into the market. The producer can only hope he made back his investment in time.
“We’ve been crying to the government. If these things are not checked now, Nollywood will go into extinction,” said Cosmas Ndulue, 42, a producer and owner of one of only two indigenous DVD manufacturing companies in Nigeria.
Industry officials and government agencies have started paying closer attention to piracy, but so far there hasn’t been much of an effect. A recent police raid on a well-known DVD-copying operation resulted in a brief confrontation between police and piracy-ring leaders. The pirates stood their ground and burned a police truck, then went back to work making knock-off Nollywood copies. The only repercussion for the offenders? A bill for the damage to the police vehicle.
As piracy takes a larger and larger chunk of the profits, finding enough money to shoot a movie is becoming even more of a challenge. Chico Ejiro, a producer and director, has been struggling to find financing for his movies. A few years ago, during the shooting of his movie “Sisters on the Run,” he sold his car to keep the production afloat. This year he convinced a local bank to sponsor “100 Days in the Jungle,” a film about abduction and village lore, but it was a flop and Mr. Ejiro says the bank quickly soured on Nollywood.
Mr. Julius, despite his production headaches, is optimistic about the future of Nollywood, as are most industry players. While watching two of his actors struggle to finish a scene on a busy Lagos street, Mr. Julius was looking forward to a complicated shoot that would involve a substantial police convoy, hundreds of extras, and foreign actors.
“I need someone to play the British prime minister in the big scene we’re shooting this weekend,” Mr. Julius said, eyeing a reporter up and down. “Am I looking at him?”
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