The announcement by EbonyLife Ltd of a collaboration with Sony Pictures Television to co-develop three new scripted TV projects comes at a significant moment in the evolution of Nollywood. EbonyLife and Sony Pictures would work on three projects while Sony Pictures would distribute them internationally. One of the projects would be a TV series inspired by the Dahomey Warriors.
Mention of Dahomey Warriors in the announcementssparked the interest of movie buffs with a political inclination excited by various possibilities evinced in the fictional country of Wakanda as captured in the Black Panther movie. It is ironical because the hype around Black Panther tended to shift the conversation off from our own The Wedding Party series that lit up the Nigerian cinema two years in a row.
Monisola Abudu and her crew at Ebony Life have understandably made a song and dance of the collaboration. So they should. The Ebony/Sony Pictures collabo represents an essential landmark in the continued evolution of our Nollywood.
EbonyLife says Dahomey Warriors “will tell the empowering story of the all-female Warriors and show the ultimate strength of women coming together, fighting to protect and honour their people.” The storyline draws from events in the neighbouring West African country of Benin Republic. EbonyLife and Sony Pictures would also feature an adaptation of the hit game show, The Dating Game for audiences in Nigeria.
The various successes with The Wedding Party, her listing among the Top 50 women in entertainment by the storied Variety magazine and her new collabos with Sony Pictures position Mo Abudu as a standard bearer for the new Nollywood. Abudu has brought to bear on Nollywood remarkable attributes and skills that fetched her successes in consulting, energy, and human capital management. Her entry into broadcasting via EbonyLife TV, production and entertainment has been hugely successful. She earned plaudits for her chat programme Moments with Mo and even higher successes with a foray into Nollywood.
EbonyLife Films debuted with Fifty. It premiered at the London Film Festival and grossed top Naira in 2015. Her partnership with the ELFIKE Film Collective delivered The Wedding Party in 2016 and the sequel The Wedding Party2 in 2017. Both films led the rankings.
What is the new Nollywood, you ask? Nollywood is the Nigerian movie industry built mostly on video format rather than the traditional celluloid of Western and Indian film industries. Nollywood upturned the tradition of producing films on celluloid. The high cost of celluloid made film production expensive and thus limited access. Nollywood changed this by making movies in readily accessible formats –video- thus popularising it and making it affordable and available to the populace.
The new Nollywood came to be with the return to the cinema. It has also meant big budget films. The motivations were the search for international acceptance and market and, locally, to combat piracy through control of the distribution process. The airing of about 10 Nigerian films at the Toronto Film Festival 2016 confirmed global recognition of the return of Nollywood to standard universal format.
The Wedding Party films explored marriage as inter-ethnic and inter-racial communication and collaboration. They also underlined the criticisms and positives of Nollywood. The negatives included over-emphasis on glamour, a dramatisation of the problems of ethnicity without offering solutions and a particular light on the undersides of Nigeria. The Wedding Party focuses on insecurity, youth unemployment and robbery. Unfortunately, it does not provide any resolution of that challenge, even as it dominates a significant portion of the time. No one gives the young man a job, nor is there any indication of punishment for the crime of stealing and holding up people with a gun.
Chief among the positives is the productive collaboration that is the ElFIKE Film Collective. They have worked well together, players from various segments of the business, to deliver quality. The Wedding Party furthers the development of Nollywood in high production values with excellent cinematography and good acting, competent storylines, excellent marketing and distribution and adoption of tried and tested global standards of exhibiting film first through cinemas before releasing in other formats such as VCD and platforms such as in-flight.
As Mo Abudu takes on her new challenge with Sony Pictures, she must lead Nollywood to tackle the ideological questions about the content of our films. Should Nollywood be a mere mirror or should it lead and contribute to society through narratives that envision things differently? What is the ideological role of film in Nigeria? Should there be one? Should the government not play a more involved role in the narratives that we share about our cities, about our people and our cultures? Should the various ministries of Information and those of Culture across the 36 states not pay more significant interest in content creation and collaborate with producers and writers rather than the obsession with reaping in levies and taxes.
Best wishes on the new journeys to Mo Abudu as she pushes new frontiers for Nollywood.
Chido Nwakanma
