Afrigather When Taiwo Adeyemi got down to doc and protect Nigeria’s movie historical past as curator of final 12 months’s Lagos exhibition, ‘Shedding Daylight’, he hung out travelling throughout the nation speaking with folks to seek out a few of the gadgets he’d finally show at an exhibition.
After amassing various gadgets, the restoration course of began, to make sure they had been adequate to be offered. ‘A number of the gadgets we discovered had been in horrible situation, and a few of their custodians had been additionally unwilling to allow them to go. Those that did [requested] exorbitant costs,’ Adeyemi says.
Documenting Nollywood, the Nigerian movie trade
(Picture credit score: Set up imagery from ‘Shedding Daylight,’ in Lagos, Nigeria)
Popularly generally known as Nollywood, a moniker that first appeared in writing in 2002, the Nigerian movie trade has gone by way of completely different eras – from colonial to the Golden Age, the video movie period, and now the New Nigerian Cinema period – at all times evolving, and continues to ship new movies and exhibits for its viewers.
With an estimated 2,500 movies churned out yearly, Nollywood is at present the second-largest film trade by way of output, after India’s Bollywood. However numerous the historical past concerning the folks behind the trade and its enlargement has been misplaced as a result of lack of documentation.
‘Documenting the historical past of Nollywood is necessary as a result of folks would not have context. For an trade this huge, it’s unimaginable that there shouldn’t be references,’ says Adeyemi. ‘When there isn’t any reference, you’re restricted with what you’ll be able to construct since you have no idea what to match it to, and no matter you construct will really feel incomplete. So I feel you will need to construct that context and create that reference so all people attempting to make Nollywood higher as an trade right this moment can examine their notes.’
(Picture credit score: Set up imagery from ‘Shedding Daylight,’ in Lagos, Nigeria)
Filling within the absence of historic proof is one thing Adeyemi understands. He’s bullish about preserving historical past, whereas making his work as a expertise supervisor straightforward as a result of ‘understanding the historical past of Nollywood and the way the movies that got here earlier than had been structured creates a greater understanding of tales’, particularly for his shoppers.
As Nigerian movies proceed to do nicely domestically and internationally, documenting it turns into extra necessary, to make its historical past extra accessible to the youthful era.
This has led to ‘Shedding Daylight’ changing into not simply an exhibition, however a everlasting assortment that preserves movie historical past in Nigeria. The exhibition blended arts with historical past by displaying uncommon footage, previous newspaper articles, scripts, memes from scenes that went viral, and bodily media of previous Nollywood movies, offering a glimpse into each forgotten and unknown moments that formed the trade as it’s recognized right this moment.
A bodily area to accommodate all these things and restore extra will open later in 2024, to function a museum for Nigeria’s movie historical past, amassing and defending the tales that proceed to outline the trade. ‘There’s nowhere you’ll be able to stroll into right this moment and discover a repository of movie historical past in Nigeria, and that is what we need to change,’ says Adeyemi.
