Inside Nollywood: Issues and Perspective on Nigeria Cinema

The idea of a book on Nollywood began as a discussion between the editors to contribute to the emerging debate on this film culture. As scholars cum practitioners, we felt a need to contribute to the debate in order to point out the real state of affairs in an industry that many would agree is functioning on its own rules which are different from those of other film cultures like Hollywood and Bollywood of America and India respectively. As a starting point, we noted the birth or growth of this film culture from the rich itinerant theatrical tradition of the alarinjo traveling theatre among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria and its evolution to the television genre in the 70s and 80s to the first experiment of film production by indigenous theatre practitioners led by Hubert Ogunde, the unquestionable doyen of Nigerian theatre, and his collaboration with one of the pioneers of Nigerian cinema, Ola Balogun, together with the significant efforts of another Nigerian, Chief Eddie Ugbomah, amongst others.