Dear Nollywood, Nobody Forgets A Good Movie

Photo of U.S. President Barack Obama posing as a powerful African Juju warrior in a Nollywood movie.

Ask any of the popular Nollywood actors and actresses and their prolific producers the titles of all their movies and I can bet you that majority of them will fail to even remember the titles and story lines of 20 of their 50 to 100 movies they will boast of making.
Imagine Steven Spielberg or even Tyler Perry not remembering the titles of any of his films?
That would a clear case of amnesia.
The fact that many Nollywood actors, actresses and producers cannot remember the titles and even story lines of their movies is enough proof of the emptiness of their productions.
Nobody forgets a good movie.

It is an ordeal to watch many Nollywood mvoies, because you may have headaches.
Majority of the Nollywood movies shown at the local cinemas have no business at any real movie theatre, because most of them are teleplays and in fact there are some I would call a scam to collect N1, 500 from any movie goer in Nigeria, because they are not even worth paying N100 for a copy of the DVD.
You will enjoy more just standing at the popular Yaba Bus Stop or UNILAG Bus Stop watching the drama and entertainment of commuters and transport vehicles in traffic than going to the popular cinemas to watch any of these Nollywood videos.

As Professor Femi Shaka said, many of them are just mere video recordings of stage drama being passed off as movies.
Any Nollywood producer without any knowledge of cinematography has no business in film-making.
There is a big difference writing a stage play and a screenplay, but majority of these "Nollywood nincompoops" don't know this fact and prefer to wallow in their professional ignorance and mediocrity.

The fact that no Nollywood movie has made even $1 million from the box office in Nigeria and abroad is enough to tell us that the over 20 years of Nollywood have been more of "garbage in, garbage out" and nothing more.
The tragedy of it all is the fact that they would rather be boasting and competing for their useless bragging rights than making amends to make world class movies even in video. And less we forget, making world class films has nothing to do with celluloid, but the simple art of good film making. And if you don't have the professional experience and expertise, go and learn from the masters or employ them to write good screenplays and get world class crew, especially a world class director, casting director and DoP and don't insist on using your boyfriends and girlfriends playing the lead roles, because you brought the money. So what?

The most unprofessional attitude is local entertainment reporters calling some Nollywood videos BLOCKBUSTERS!
Do these people know what is a block buster?
Well, once fat brown envelopes exchange hands, any Nollywood movie parading some popular Nollywood stars is a block buster! grin

90& of these Nollywood stars will not pass auditions in Hollywood!
Why? Because they are too amateurish!
Their poor articulation is enough to expose their unprofessional levels.

You cannot hide a good movie, because a good movie shows itself at international film festivals where 90% of Nollywood movies have not qualified for ordinary screening and not even making the selection for competition.
It is at the international film festivals we separate the quality from the quantity.
You cannot shine at Durban International Film Festival and Cairo International Film Festival and the major film studios and distributors in Hollywood will fail to notice you. And you cannot win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and Hollywood will bluff you.



Majority of Nollywood producers don't read what they are supposed to read like major movies magazines online and offline like the Hollywood Reporter, Indiewire, the American Cinematographer, the Black Film Maker and others where there are resources to improve their standards. They prefer to read Entertainment Express, National Encomium and other local tabloids of celebrity gossips that cannot give them anything worthy of their careers in motion pictures.
So, how can they improve when they don't learn?


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, aka Orikinla Osinachi, co-author of Naked Beauty, the first Nollywood screenplay to be published and other books.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Orikinla, http://blogcritics.org/writers/orikinla/
http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/139593/orikinla_osinachi.html, http://208.66.65.209/people/MichaelChima/

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