What Is the Place of Nollywood in the World?

THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / FILM DEPT.

On the train from Paris to Lille where I was headed to attend the 2025 Series Mania festival, the biggest television series festival in Europe, I browsed through the available free in-train movies. There were Italian, French, American and Indian movies, but—not exactly to my surprise—no Nigerian films. Earlier, on my flight from Doha to Paris, I had searched for a few Nollywood films and found only Nigerian filmmaker Biodun Stephen’s Sista and another title I can’t remember now. But it took considerably more effort to find them than to find Hollywood or Bollywood movies, which had dedicated categories. Nollywood, the second-largest movie industry in the world (in terms of volume) after Bollywood, was tucked under ‘World Movies’, and even then, I had to click ‘African’ to get to Nigerian films. I wondered, why is Nollywood not readily available in places where it should exist?

To my mind, this was similar to my experience boarding the plane at Hamad International Airport in Doha, where I was reminded of what it means to be Nigerian and, for the first time in my life, Black. At the passport checkpoint, everyone else in line was asked what passport they held and then waved through. ‘What passport?’ ‘Australian.’ ‘You can go ahead.’ ‘What passport?’ ‘American.’ ‘You can go ahead.’ I was next. ‘What passport?’ ‘Nigerian.’ ‘Step aside, please.’ I was delayed for over five minutes as they scanned and rescanned my passport and visa, asking questions like, ‘Can I see your hotel booking, please?’ Eventually, they apologized for the delay and asked me to proceed to Zone 4. When I stepped into the zone, I could not find anyone who shared the same skin colour as me. I imagine myself, despite billions of people who share my skin colour, as Nollywood trying to exist outside of its original place but perennially judged unworthy of access. As part of my work as a journalist attending Series Mania, I had requested interviews with some of the invited Nollywood series makers and stakeholders. I pulled out my notepad and wrote a question I was going to ask them: What exactly is the place of Nollywood in the world?