What would you say if you knew that the second largest film industry in the world is the Nigerian film industry? “nollywood“(according to the American Hollywood) releases anywhere from 3 to 5000 films annually, some of which we had the opportunity to see in our area today through Nollywood Travel Film Festivalwhich ended yesterday with celebratory tones and live music in Film library of Greece.

“We are a big industry, reaching an even bigger audience both in Africa and the Caribbean, as well as in other African diasporas, in America, Canada and other countries. His interest has been very high in recent years Netflixbut also from Amazon, Disney+ for Nollywood,” Michael Parris, director and producer of the festival, tells us about this little African miracle that has been worked on for the past ten years.

The next step for Nollywood is to create opportunities for Nigerian cinema to travel the world, which is why the festival has come to Athens after Toronto, Atlanta, Berlin, Oslo and Helsinki. “The goal is to build relationships between our own and local producers and distributors, to build partnerships so that we can make films in Greece as well. The places here are fantastic. And, of course, we want to replicate all of this in an appropriate way by inviting local Greeks to come to Nigeria.”

Hellenic Cinema Center CEO Athena Kartalou confirms this intention of cooperation: “For us, this is a great opportunity to activate the extroversion framework, introducing Greek film actors to new successful development models as they are shaping up after the pandemic. What’s most interesting is to break away from some of the fixed notions of cinema and see, for example, how they worked in the transition model to online platforms.

“In the past, the West has created a certain cinematic image of Africa, now it’s time to tell a different story.”

Own platform

One such platform is irokotv.com, visually very similar to Netflix, full of Nollywood movies and with a turnover in excess of $50 million a year. He even recently secured a partnership with France’s Canal+ to produce new films and series. As for the films themselves, they tend to be relatively low-budget (around $200,000), but there are some that cost $10 million or more to produce. “Thematically, we have a lot of narratives related to black culture, African heritage and lifestyle. By the way, in this – in culture, in food – we also have a great similarity with the Greeks, as we found out these days when we are in your country, ”says Mikel Paris.

“Only for the sake of specific events, about 80 guests from Nigeria (producers, directors, actors) came to Athens and left a noticeable mark. Some of them have 16-20 million social media followers, numbers you will only find with Hollywood or Bollywood stars. From all we received great love for our country, some of them, because of their classical studies, were very glad to have the opportunity to visit Greece,” adds Ms. Kartalou.

But what can Nollywood and African cinema in general contribute to world cinema? “First of all, our stories. Look at what’s been happening in Hollywood in recent years. Figures such as Saka Zulu, Nelson Mandela, Giannis Antetokounmpo or Naniska in the latest film “The Woman King” are attracting the attention of the whole world. Then there is the need to speak for yourself. In the past, the West has created a certain cinematic image of Africa: the jungle, the monkeys, the lions, the bamboo. Now it’s time to tell another story. There are great values ​​in these places, and we are now trying to “sell” them in a good way.”