Noah Tsika reviews a new book:
More here...offering a detailed yet snappy introduction to an industry that is exceedingly difficult to condense for any readership, let alone one with no previous knowledge of African screen media. Witt, who has written for GQ and The New York Times, takes a journalistic approach to Nollywood without falling back on the bombast of most popular accounts, which tend to exoticize the industry almost beyond recognition, expressing a distinctly Western wonder at the activities of the undifferentiated African masses. In this short book, chapters contextualizing Nollywood as a popular art and commercial industry alternate with effective plot summaries of key films (including Amaka Igwe’s classic melodrama Violated, from 1996, and Daniel Oriahi’s more recent Taxi Driver: Oko Ashewo, from 2015). Witt, who researched the book in Nigeria, also provides firsthand accounts of various activities, from micro-budget filmmaking in Asaba to a splashy, star-studded movie premiere at The Palms, a mall in Lekki. Her wry humor occasionally comes through, but it never seems condescending or otherwise disrespectful. One senses that the author genuinely admires the artists and entrepreneurs with whom she spent time, and this reader, at least, can attest to the accuracy of her warm, evocative character portraits.
