Nollywood's next act: How Nigeria's film industry is leveling up

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The growth of Nigeria’s film industry can be traced, curiously enough, to a time of neglect.During the 1990s, a lack of government funding pushed unemployed actors and crew to produce their own films and sell them on VHS or DVD to recoup costs — including Chris Obi Rapu’s home video blockbuster “Living in Bondage,” which inspired a new wave of filmmakers eager to tell their own stories.

Today, Nollywood (a portmanteau of Nigeria and Hollywood) is much larger, producing the second most movies globally after India.But financial constraints, inconsistent support systems and limited access to global markets remain, albeit in different forms — and the creative hustle of that defining era is still as important as ever.“Because our industry grew out of people and not government policies, there isn’t a massive African studio system to make and distribute films,” says Chioma Ude, the founder of the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) and the AFRIFF Film & Content Market.

The latter, a platform designed to connect African filmmakers with buyers, agents and investors to sell, distribute and co-produce content, has attracted the support of the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy (FMACCE), positioning Nigeria as a global player.“We decided to use our platform to teach filmmakers about regional distribution,” Ude says.This independent streak has helped Nollywood weather the ups and downs of the international streaming economy, dominated by the same handful of players in West Africa as it is in Southern California.When Netflix entered the Nigerian market in 2016 and scooped up the rights to Genevieve Nnaji’s empowering film “Lionheart” (2018), it set the stage for the streamer to bet big on Nigerian talent, signing major deals that included “Star Wars” actor John Boyega and multititle partnerships with Mo Abud...