Frame 1: Establishing shot: small town in Nigeria. 1972. Camera pans through shot. It is a night scene, a dusty motor-park. It is on the south side of the town's market and in the daytime, this is the busiest place in town, the main bus and taxi terminus. Now at night, the cars and buses are parked close together like tombstones. On the white washed wall of the fish market a film is being projected. The space between the parked vehicles and the wall, about sixty feet wide, is packed with the audience who are sitting or standing in front of the makeshift screen. A bunch of children sit on the roof of a lorry parked in the shadows. Before the film begins, a few men with the film company toss cartons of cigarettes into the crowd. A kid at the front catches one and runs it to the lorry. Climbing up, he divides the cigarettes among the cluster of kids aged between seven and eleven. Tonight was a special night; it was double feature night. The last time that happened they had watched a John Wayne double feature. Everyone loved John Wayne. They light up and settle down as the screen comes alive.
On the screen:
A white man is standing in a desert, an Arab pointing a pistol at him. Suddenly a shot rings out, the white man falls to his knees; the Arab falls dead. Another man, on a black horse in black robes and a veiled face rides up. He dismounts, kicks the dead Arab, who looks like him, stoops and picks up his pistol. Slowly the white man comes to his feet as the new Arab removes his veil and speaks: "this is my well", he says.
That veiled man was Omar Sharif and his entrance on Lawrence of Arabia was probably the most dramatic of the last century. To us it was magical and everyone in that dusty motor-park fell in love with Omar Sharif. What a thing, that an African can hold sway on the world stage. Until the double feature - A Man in the House, a more obscure Egyptian film. With no subtitles we couldn't understand the dialogue since it was in Arabic, but we knew it was a love story because the musical score mirrored the Hollywood love stories. What was unmistakable were the words for God: Allah, inshallah. Two years after the civil war that involved genocide against the predominantly Christian Igbo by the Muslim Hausas, this was a problem. The mood began to change, with every invocation of the Koran or Allah. Everyone loved Omar but soon the crowd went from grumbling to throwing empty beer bottles against the wall until finally two shots rang out - one punched a hole in the wall where Omar's face was, the other killed the already ancient projector.
Frame 2: Flash-forward: 2006. Hilton Hotel, North Hollywood, LA. First international conference on Nollywood organized by Dr Sylvester Ogbechie of UCSB. Present are scholars, critics, a Cameroonian director, Hollywood folk, mostly from Forest Whitaker and Danny Glover's production companies, some black actors, a Nollywood contingent of directors, writers and actors.
Shot 1:
Panel Discussion - Q and A for directors:
Cameroonian director: (paraphrasing) I don't even know why I am here talking about the "art" of Nigerian cinema. This is like a Nobel Prize-winning author on a panel with Stephen King talking about "art."
Nigerian director: (quote) I understand why my Francophone friend here is jealous of Nollywood. We sell films, lots of films, without any funds from the EU. People never see his movies, but ours are bestsellers within days. The last Francophone "art" film I saw showed a ten-minute shot of a camel standing in a desert doing nothing, not even shitting. I may not know what art is, but this is not it.
Moderator: (paraphrasing) Gentlemen, please.
Shot 2:
A Nigerian director speaks in response to all the critical papers presented on Nollywood. Curiously his accent becomes very thick as he speaks, his syntax changing from the very educated American accented English he communicated with over lunch. I wonder absently if this is some performance like gangsta rap. This is recreated from notes and memory.
Let me begin with a statement, for those of you not knowing, Nollywood is the name of the Nigerian film industry. We call it Nollywood because it is third in money and quantity in the world behind Hollywood and Bollywood only. Let me also state that I appreciate all your essays, very intelligent intellectual ramblings and invocations, but now I will give you the really truth about it. First we begin with motivation, that is when the eureka moment occurs and you say to yourself, or even you sitting in the audience, although here I am talking about myself, so you say, I am going to make a movie. Then you approach Alhaji, this may or may not be a Hausa currency dealer at the airport, it can also be a Nigerian of any tribe and money-making ability, but essentially a person
who can bankroll this film you are about to embark on the production of. As you know, you have to be rich in Nigeria to become an Alhaji, so the richness is the key. Unlike US producers, Alhaji, which by now you can guess is just the term of the bankroller and not a statement of the person's true reality, will give you the money, usually $15,000 max for the loan term of no more than two months and a 30% interest rate. Anyway, you call a writer, in this case his name is Sonny and you say: "Sonny I want a script, Alhaji gave me 10,000 and I need to shoot and wrap to CD/DVD in a week." Then Sonny will say, "what kind of script?"
