Welcome to Nollywood

Welcome to Nollywood takes you inside the Nigerian film industry, which has exploded in the last ten years. Now the most popular cinema in all of West Africa – more popular even than imports of Hollywood or Bollywood films – the Nigerian film industry has distinguished itself by shooting all films (called video-films) on digital video.

This has allowed production schedules to be compressed (films are shot in several days) and immediately brought to market (distribution consists of bringing films to Idumota electronics market in Lagos and selling them for home-viewing). The sheer volume of Nigerian video-films is staggering: one estimate has a film being produced for each day of the year. Nollywood is now the third largest film industry in the world, generating 286 million dollars per year for the Nigerian economy. And yet this vibrant, profitable industry is virtually unknown outside of Africa.