A little over thirty minutes into the classic Nollywood flick, Living In Bondage, Ande Okeke—the film’s down–on–his–luck protagonist—is introduced to some members of the Millionaires’ Club at a birthday party for Ichie Million. It’s also at this occasion that he encounters Ego, his eventual mistress, placing all the forces that would ultimately lead to his descent into madness within proximity for the first time. Swayed by the luxuriant lifestyle on display, that scene sets the stage for Okeke’s eventual incorporation into a world of moral and spiritual decadence underpinned by an insatiable desire for material wealth—a familiar trope that would define much of the early years of Nollywood productions. 

Upon its release in 1992, Living In Bondage—produced by Nigerian entrepreneur Kenneth Nnebue to take advantage of excess video cassettes he had imported—became a breakaway success. It signalled the arrival of the video home system era that would metamorphose into Nollywood in the coming years, dominating audiovisual storytelling in the country for the next three decades. For all the success that it has gone on to record, Nollywood is not the starting point of Nigeria’s film culture. The country has always had a rich storytelling tradition that evolved from the peephole viewing culture of the early 1900s to the emergence of mobile cinemas in the 1920s and 1930s, before giving way to the itinerant theatre groups like the Adejobi Theatre Group and Ogunmola Travelling Theatre that became ubiquitous from the 1950s onwards.

“Nigeria always had people making films from the start,” says actress and dancer Cossy Orjiakor. “We had figures like Hubert Ogunde, Adeyemi Afolayan, and Duro Ladipo who embodied the essence of that storytelling and educated people with their films.” The emergence of state-owned broadcasting networks in the post-colonial era meant that productions shifted from being primarily stage-led to television-centred, with shows like the socio-politically-themed The Village Headmaster and The New Masquerade bolstering the country’s nascent film and TV scene and introducing a new generation of actors and actresses.

The introduction of the International Monetary Fund-mandated Structural Adjustment Programme by the Ibrahim Babangida-led regime in June 1986 dealt a critical blow to Nigerian cinema, setting the stage for the social and financial factors that would lead to the birth of Nollywood. Due to the devaluation of the national currency and a sharp rise in the cost of living, cinemas across the country were forced to shut down in the 1990s, leaving a huge gap for the entertainment provided by films. The success of Living In Bondage, strategically distributed on cheap video cassettes, provided an alternative for the country’s film-watching populace.

^{On the left: Onyi Okereafor plays a queen who is forced to marry her husband's captor in Shina Rambo 2, 2016. 
On the right: The whole village comes out to watch as a film is made in Igbuzor, southeast Nigeria, 2016. Photos by Glenna Gordon.}

Taking note of the film’s success, filmmakers and distributors pivoted to this format for distribution, creating timeless classics like Nneka The Pretty Serpent, Domitilla, Saworoide, Osuofia In London, and Koto Aye. These films captured the breadth of Nigerian expression while exploring socio-political issues like government corruption, materialism, and over-the-top Nigerian humour in 100-minute-plus vignettes that pushed the boundaries of our collective imagination and positioned Nigeria as an emerging filmmaking powerhouse. “Early Nollywood captured the full diversity of Nigerian filmmaking,” says Adedeji “DEJ” Olowo-Okere, a creative director and producer. “It became an internationally recognisable identity that helped position the Nigerian film industry in global film markets and to international audiences.”

Due in part to the country’s dire economic straits in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Nollywood films focused on themes like financial prosperity, the pitfalls of greed, and social decadence, emphasising a spiritual angle that mirrored the rise of pentecostalism in Nigeria.

Due in part to the country’s dire economic straits in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Nollywood films focused on themes like financial prosperity, the pitfalls of greed, and social decadence, emphasising a spiritual angle that mirrored the rise of pentecostalism in Nigeria. “Nollywood was reflecting the reality of the country,” Olowo-Okere points out. “People were dealing with economic hardship, unemployment, and uncertainty, so stories about wealth, success, and financial breakthrough naturally resonated. Money, ambition, greed, and redemption kept coming up because they connected with people’s everyday experiences.”

As these films started to garner attention and notoriety, creative clusters started to form across Nigeria, reflecting the industry’s production and commercial guardrails. Lagos, long regarded as the country’s commercial heartbeat, remained integral for financing and central planning. “One of those spaces in Lagos is Surulere for production,” says Seyi Lasisi, a film critic and journalist. “You have the National Theatre; there’s also Winny’s Hotel in Surulere where people used to go for auditions and productions.”

For distribution purposes, other popular hotspots in Lagos like Idumota and Alaba emerged, becoming powerhouses that propelled Nollywood productions to national and regional fame. Sadly, the prominence of Idumota and Alaba gave rise to piracy, an endemic illness that crippled many of the filmmakers and actors that built the industry. Upon release, nebulous figures in Idumota and Alaba would illegally duplicate these creative efforts and cut out the producers from the proceeds, creating a parallel market that continued to hurt Nollywood until the renaissance of cinema culture in the late 2010s.

^{On the left: Elizah Ikechukwu edits a film in his office in Asaba, Nigeria, 2016.
On the right: Movie theater. Most Nollywood films are watched and screened informally, but there are a few movie theaters in Lagos and other big cities in Nigeria, Lagos 2016.} 

Despite Lagos’ outsized centrality, other spheres of influence emerged across the country for a variety of reasons. “Enugu became an important filmmaking centre because of its strong theatrical tradition, talented performers and lower production costs compared to Lagos,” Olowookere notes. “Onitsha also emerged as a crucial distribution centre thanks to its large electronics and media markets that became major hubs for the duplication and sale of VHS tapes, making it instrumental in getting films to audiences nationwide.” Put together, these cities formed a critical network for the production, duplication, and distribution of authentically Nigerian stories that reached millions of viewers across Nigeria and beyond, setting the stage for the embrace of an authentically African storytelling orthodoxy.

As a child growing up in Cameroon, Faith Ndansi used to perform weekend chores alongside a mother who put on Nollywood productions as an accompaniment to the hum of her tasks. It’s a tradition that continued when she moved to Canada as a six-year-old, helping her navigate her feelings around being African. “There was an overwhelming sense of familiarity when I watched them,” Ndansi says. “From the cast to the plot to the dialect, a lot of it was my reality, and that representation and familiarity were very comforting as a kid who was usually the odd one out.”

Long before Afrobeats and Alté rose to global renown, Nollywood was the first port of call for Nigerian culture domestically and internationally.

At home, Nigerian productions created a range of films that reflected the pulse of youth culture and broader social life, becoming the default reference point for Nigerian representation. Long before Afrobeats and Alté rose to global renown, Nollywood was the first port of call for Nigerian culture domestically and internationally. “Nollywood provided a lot of the style, the imagination, and star power that Nigeria enjoyed in the late 1990s and early 2000s,” Orjiakor argues. “Out of little, a lot was created to allow people to see Nigeria on the global stage without losing the essence of who we truly are.”

Additionally, Nollywood productions have traditionally centred women, allowing a generation of young African girls, both home and abroad, to find inspiration in the iconic figures they saw on their screens. “For me, the legacy of these films in raising African pride has been learning to exist within myself,” Ndansi says. “Watching Nollywood movies and seeing characters such as Patience Ozokwor, Mary Johnson, Genevieve Nnaji, and many others play a plethora of roles spanning different genres gave me the confidence not to limit myself.”

Till today, Nollywood continues to be a robust force for decoding Nigerian identity and fostering pan-African pride. It is the legacy of a storytelling tradition that harkens back to pre-colonial times, and that has been fine-tuned over the years. At its core is the unassailable belief that Nigerian expression has a place on the global stage. “Nollywood legitimised the Nigerian identity across the continent and around the world,” Lasisi points out. “It allowed Nigerian identity to travel.”