By Alex C
The Nigerian film industry has upstaged global movie world through its innovation, imaginativeness, and prolific performance. Popularly dubbed ‘Nollywood’, the nation’s film industry is globally adjudged as the most prolific with consistent production of more than 2000 titles in the country’s three major languages rendered every year since 2008.
This has placed the film industry in the country as the third in global revenue earnings, with receipts ranging between $300million and $800million in recent past. There are a few Nigerian movies that have upstaged global entertainment with high quality production, perfect sound and technical details, high profile cast, organised distribution and every other detail that make global viewers to go after Hollywood movies.
The movies are so due to their high budget production. Foremost among them is Obi Emelonye’s ‘Last Flight to Abuja’. It cost $250,000 to make the film, a cost that is more than six times the typical budget in Nollywood, an industry known for shoddy shoots, poor production and filmmakers churning out features en masse to a nation of more than 160 million people, Africa’s most populous.
Yielding $350, 000 with premieres in five cinemas in Nigeria, 10 cinemas in London, ‘Last Flight to Abuja’ was the highest-grossing West African film in 2013.
When released, the film ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, an adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel cost $9 million to produce. This will be the most expensive movie filmed in Nigeria. Set during the country’s civil war in the 1960s, it cost $9 million.
The $200,000 ‘Anchor Baby’ produced by Lonzo Nzekwe is another Nollywood high budget film. “Anchor Baby,” a drama about a Nigerian couple illegally living in the U.S., recouped the $200,000 it cost and made a small profit.
Kunle Afolayan’s ‘Figurine’, and ‘October 1’, which both won awards at international film festivals are also high budget films that are worthy of mention. The creative Nigerian filmmaker wooed investors who made sure funding was available for their world-class production.
‘Dr. Bello’ by Tony Abulu sponsored by Nexim Bank, was another high budget film that upstaged global viewers at its premiere. The film which cost over N10 million to produce through the Nigerian Creative and Entertainment Industry Stimulation Loan Scheme administered by Nexim Bank further took quality in Nigerian films to a more global appealing level.
Recently, Roberts Orya, Managing Director, Nigerian Export and Import Bank (NEXIM) insisted that the bank would not rest on its oars in pooling resources to better the lot of the creative industry and its practitioners.
Interestingly, the total funding support to the Nigerian Creative Industry (of which Nollywood belongs) by NEXIM was at over N778.5million, with applications for over N26billion under processing.