This 12 months’s Africa Magic Viewers’ Selection Awards (AMVCA) nominations supply one thing to consider. Movies like Home of Ga’a, Lisabi, Seven Doorways, and Aníkúlápó: Rise of the Spectre lead the pack throughout a number of classes. Other than being big-budget productions, contemplating how a lot could be spent on stage designs and costumes, they’re tales rooted in custom, historical past and language. A lot of them are advised in Yoruba, set in pre-colonial or early colonial occasions, and filmed in places that protect outdated worlds.
Aníkúlápó, when it first dropped on Netflix in 2022, grew to become a breakout hit. It sparked debates, impressed memes, and reached a worldwide viewers, lots of whom had been seeing a Nigerian interval movie for the primary time. It reached primary on Netflix’s world chart. Since Aníkúlápó, extra epic motion pictures have been launched on streaming platforms, a lot in order that the style grew to become very engaging to many. For some, it grew to become tiring, which exhibits what number of epic motion pictures had been launched. Some requested: Did the success of Anikulapo open the door for extra tales prefer it?
Earlier than final 12 months, a number of discussions have been had about cultural exportation and the way Nollywood is usually a vessel to export Nigerian cultures. Like South Korea, critics argue that Nigeria must also have the ability to export Nigerian cultures via Nollywood, contemplating the trade is the second-largest producer of flicks on this planet. Though epic motion pictures won’t summarily discover the Nigerian trendy tradition, they may introduce the worldwide viewers to the core and first features of Nigerian tradition. Was this the intention of the filmmakers final 12 months?
The AMVCA is extensively thought-about the Oscars for African cinema, and yearly, folks all over the world get launched to new African motion pictures so as to add to their watch listing. Final 12 months, when Breath of Life received Greatest Film, lots of people, myself included, rushed to observe the brilliantly executed film, and it made me admire the expertise of Chimezie Imo. With extra epic and indigenous motion pictures nominated in several and lots of essential classes like Greatest Actor, Greatest Film and others, this 12 months, is the AMVCA intentional about exporting Nigerian and African tradition, understanding that hundreds of individuals the world over could be keen on watching these movies? If Nigeria efficiently exports its tradition to the world to grow to be so mainstream, it could possibly be one other supply of financial success.
So, what does it imply that these epic movies are main this 12 months’s AMVCA nominations? Are audiences genuinely drawn to them, or is that this merely a mirrored image of the shortage of contemporary, standout movies final 12 months? It’s laborious to say. However it was additionally plain that Nollywood witnessed a number of indigenous motion pictures launched final 12 months, and these movies are wealthy in visuals and cultural references.
Nonetheless unnoticeable, there’s additionally the matter of language and illustration. Most of those movies are in Yoruba, which, if you wish to argue deeply, is sensible, contemplating the dominance of Yoruba cinema in Nigeria’s movie historical past and the existence of movie villages within the area. The expansion of movie villages in southwestern Nigeria has made it simpler for these sorts of tales to be advised. Places that may mimic older eras, actors fluent in Yoruba, and entry to costuming and units that mirror conventional types; all of those make manufacturing smoother. However does this imply we’ll proceed to see much less illustration of different Nigerian cultures in these huge, epic codecs? Or will the nominations hoist and permit room for indigenous tales from different elements of the nation to thrive?
There’s additionally the inventive aspect of issues. Whereas many of those epic motion pictures are fantastically produced, some viewers have began to really feel fatigued by the repetition of themes. Everyone simply dey rinse the identical themes: kings, betrayal, struggle, mysticism and others. Are we starting to see a method kind? If that’s the case, is it stifling new storytelling concepts that would have emerged from a wider vary of historic or indigenous views? Personally, I’d wish to see extra conventional tales that discover different themes like motherhood and love, with out the gory scenes and others.
Whether or not these nominations sign a shift or a cycle, we look ahead to seeing the way it all unfolds on the AMVCA in Could.
