Archival Access and Artistic Creation: Nigerian Film Heritage in the Novelty Spiral

RESEARCH/ PROJECT 1.2

ARCHIVAL ACCESS AND ARTISTIC CREATION: NIGERIAN FILM HERITAGE IN THE NOVELTY SPIRAL

The sub-project looks at film history and film heritage as a resource in cultural production. In particular, the project studies how templates from regional film histories reappear in contemporary Nigerian films, and how digital access reshapes both audiences’ perceptions of film history and their appraisal of new films.

We argue that, for the three decades since the emergence of the Nigerian non/post-celluloid film industries, Nigerian film producers have mostly focused on novelty and short-term cycles of commercial exploitation rather than the long-term cultivation of copyrights typical of more consolidated film industries like Hollywood. We work from the hypothesis that Nigerian film culture is approaching a tipping point where the longer-term digital circulation of older films in complete versions or abbreviated forms such as memes leads audiences to develop a sophisticated awareness of Nigeria’s film history and causes producers to recognize the longer-term value of individual films. We seek to test this hypothesis by looking, among other things, at remake cycles in recent Nigerian film productions, distribution catalogues of streaming platforms, and paratextual forms of circulations like film-based memes.

RESEARCH METHODS

The project combines film analysis/textual analysis with industry analysis and production studies. We look at the transformation of visual style in Nigerian cinema and look at continuities and discontinuities with previous periods of Nigerian film history. We use archival research and digital methods to trace professional trajectories of artists and technicians by collating film school ledgers, employment records, and screen credits; we use digital methods to observe online fan and audience discourses about contemporary and historical films, as well as preference patterns in streaming and other forms of circulation. We further use archival research and on-site research including interviews with producers, directors, actors, writers, and other figures in the Nigerian film industry to trace the impact of artistic and organizational templates from earlier phases of the industry’s development and their digital afterlives on contemporary production.

ACTIVITIES

CEDITRAA 2 on Distribution starting on October 1, 2024

We are very happy to share that our application for an extension of CEDITRAA has been approved! CEDITRAA 2 is going to focus on distribution. The project starts October 1, 2024 and ends on September 30, 2027.

Screen Worlds workshop now online

The Screen Worlds Workshop “Shaping the Conversation: Decolonising Film with Nigerian Women Filmmakers Omoni Oboli + Tope Oshin” is now online. African women filmmakers are continuously making powerful statements through their creative efforts in film and television. These statements are...

Remaking Nollywood: Networks of Circulations and Memory Constructions

Over the last few years the so-called New Nollywood industry has produced several films that are remakes or sequels of Old Nollywood movies from the video era. We want to investigate this phenomenon, which can be seen as both a...

Ethnographic methods

The classical method of ethnographic research requires researchers to travel to the people whose cultural practices they intend to study. They live among them for a period of time, learn their language, and participate in their daily activities, methods that...

CEDITRAA Panel at International Film and Media Studies Conference

This year we are represented with a panel at the XXVIII International Film and Media Studies Conference, “And Yet It Moves! On Cinema, Media, and Mobility”, November 2 – 5 2021, held hybrid as a hybrid event online as well...