by Akinwande Jordan
Fiction is an important part of a functioning society. From the beginning of time, man has relied on stories and storytelling for various reasons. You cannot accurately detail the brief history of the world without broaching the essence of the story as form and as practice. One might define cinema as the admixing of all our storytelling impulses into one.
However, in Africa, cinema is a colonial remnant much like the printing press. But unlike the printing press, it evoked its own culture — the culture of moviegoing and the indulgence in fantasy and beauty.
The golden age of Nigerian cinema redefined an era, an era that is known for its collection of cinematic masterpieces by the likes of Hubert Ogunde and Sam Olaiya, both renowned theatre practitioners before transitioning to filmmaking. Cities like Ibadan and Lagos were the centers for art form and going to the cinema, despite the age’s national tensions, was similar to attending a morning mass.
But that age has passed, along with its vibrant culture and values. First came the oil boom, then the video boom and the slow death of the moviegoing culture.
Silverbird cinemas. Filmhouse. Kada cinemas. Ebony Life cinemas, etc. Most of us are familiar with these movie theatres, some of them are standalone edifices, and others have been turned into mega-malls. Cinemas are a symbol of brief fantasy if you had the means to enjoy the experience.
The movie theatre is less elitist compared to classical theatres (which seems more academic), everyone regardless of preference in genre is welcome. There’s a predominant subset of our moviegoing culture; it is alarmingly American. We are at the mercy of Hollywood blockbusters and the distribution companies who peddle them. The popular obsession is the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has simultaneously encouraged the moviegoing culture while watering down the essence of it.
While we’re not saying that there’s no room for comic book adaptations; that would be impractical but it has come at a cost – absolute profit.
Movie theatres are not lost, but they are bound to the capital-consumer dynamic and absolute profit. They have to sell, they have to sell out and only sell what keeps the lights on. And the fact that there are only about 81 functioning movie theatres in Nigeria further narrows down what is worth of screen time; highly anticipated Hollywood movies, and the big-budget Nigerian movies getting released in the theatres – the comedies with five sequels, or the political thrillers all reading from the same book.
Though these movies have their place in our culture, we are currently creating an entertainment-centric status quo at the expense of the progress of cinema as a whole.
Across the wide terrain of Nigeria there exists filmmakers who religiously seek to create important work outside the confines of what is deemed as profitable and palatable but they are unfortunately unable to get their work(s) the much-needed screening. This is all due to a uniformity in what is to be shown. The audience, especially the Nigerian audience, feels averse to what is deemed “abnormal”, they often categorise it as uber-pretentious or opaque because they are only familiar with that which seeks to solely entertain them, leaving room for the occasional Kunle Afolayan or Kemi Adetiba flick.
Accounting for a sub-audience that has ventured into the culture of Asian cinema, specifically Korean cinema (predominantly Korean television, aptly K-drama), we rarely ever give palpable credence to the home-grown “Indie scene” despite the films and directors emerging from that scene being Festival darlings offshore.
Filmmakers such as Abba T Makama, CJ. Obasi, Michael Omonua, Chuko Esiri and emerging talents like Dika Ofoma et al are the de facto faces of the Nigerian new wave — a wave recognised ironically by foreign festivals but incuriously relegated in the home country. There’s a vacuum of access to be filled by the movie theatres if they can venture past the philosophy of profit and help bring what we have relegated as unorthodox and bereft of total entertainment to a mass audience consigned to be hive-minded consumers.
Movie theatres can be a sociological tool, bridging the gap between masses and the obscure, making the Avant-garde accessible to everyone across every class— abating our aversions to what is strange and leaves us with inquiry, consolidating our collective interests.
Our culture —any culture — pertaining to art is often symbolic, an emblem signifying the anxiety of the age. There will be no abrupt radical change until there’s a tide shift that guides the navigation of our ship. In the years of the golden age of cinema, people gathered in ecstasy to see the stars on the screen despite the nascent nature of Nigerian cinema. There was a newness that permeated the air. We cannot replicate bygone years but we can salvage the remains of dying of a culture and electrify our screens with the human stories worth recounting in the decades to come.