Films Rake In $450m For Nigeria

Nigeria's Information and Communications Minister, Mr. John Odey, has put the net worth of the country s film industry at $450m (N52 billion).

Odey spoke in Abuja during the opening ceremony of this year s edition of the ZUMA Film Festival with the theme, Films Across Borders, organised by the Nigerian Film Festival.

The minister said the event, the fourth edition, was "coming at a time when the nation is taking stock of her developmental strategies with a view to charting a roadmap to become one of the 20 most industrialised nations by the year 2020."

Odey described the nation s film sector as one "that has great potentials in actualising the government s objective (Vision 2020)," adding that the motion picture industry in Nigeria "indeed deserves to be celebrated."

The minister said: "The history of the evolution of the Nigerian film industry is a lesson in human resilience; the celebration of the never-say-die spirit and creative ingenuity of Nigerian filmmakers.

We need not be reminded that the Nigerian movie industry came out of nothing to emerge the third largest content provider in the world with net worth of $450 million. The compelling lesson from this is that no matter the state of our economy, we have what it takes to salvage the situation."

The sector, Odey said, "blazes the trail in its contribution to the national economy through the provision of employment opportunities to hundreds of thousands of Nigerian youths.

This forms the thrust of one of the cardinal focus of the Federal Government seven-point agenda: Wealth creation; with enormous potentials in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."

In his address, the Managing Director, Nigerian Film Corporation and Chairman, Festival Organising Committee, Mr. Afolabi Adesanya, was optimistic that the passing into law of various policy documents, "will signal a new dawn in the motion picture practice in Nigeria."

He disclosed that several ministerial committees had been set up to address the crucial issues in the sector such as "professionalism in the motion picture industry; comprehensive study of the film industry; guidelines for the establishment of film villages and the National Film Development Fund.
 
The Nigerian film industry has grown rapidly to become the third largest in the world, after that of the United States and India.

In the early 1990s, Nigerian cities faced growing crime and insecurity. Theatres were forced to close down because people were afraid to venture out after dark. Videos for home viewing imported from the West and India were quite popular, but the depreciation of the local currency made foreign film imports extremely expensive. That was when enterprising Nigerians stepped in to fill the gap with their own products.

And in just 15 years, the Nigerian film industry, known as Nollywood, has grown from nothing into an industry that employs some 300,000 people.

The films do not screen in theaters - they are recorded on fairly low quality video cassettes, and lately video compact discs, and sold for a few dollars.

Afolabi Adesanya, Managing Director of the Nigeria Film Corporation, which organizes the Zuma Film Festival, says their popularity is based on the fact that they deal with everyday issues in a manner everyone can identify with.

"They are not elitist- they are not appealing to a small segment, they are appealing to the masses who can afford these products, be they on VHS cassettes, video CD or DVD, said Adesanya.

"The storyline, the simplicity of the production, they readily relate with them. The characters are characters they relate with on a daily basis. Their stories are just too familiar; it is like its my story, its your story. So there is strong empathy for the products of Nollywood. Beyond the borders of Nigeria, they have resonance."

With the production of some two-thousand movie titles per year, and revenues estimated at $500 million annually, the industry is ranked the third largest in the world, after Hollywood in the United States and Bollywood in India.

Story by Gilbert da Costa