Untying Colonial Knots Around Film in Africa: The Entrepreneurial Culture of Nollywood
Conference: ISA 22nd Annual International Conference (2025)
Presenter(s): Innocent Ebere Uwah
Tags: 2025 University of Port Harcourt Innocent Ebere Uwah Rivers State
Abstract
Cinema in Africa took off as an anti-colonial movement. Its vivifying oxygen at the time was pan-Africanism as a way of giving voice to the continent while decolonizing the western gaze on screen. So long as the struggle was ideologically foregrounded, it remains a tough turf to unpack in arguing that the pioneer filmmakers of the continent succeeded in achieving such a vision. However, unlike then, the Nollywood film industry of Nigeria has systematically gained global acclaim and popular sovereignty by dislodging the Euro-American hegemony and imperial intrusiveness that seemingly beclouded the first phase of film practice in the continent. This paper, while harping on the framework of historical analysis, explores how Nollywood has continued to untie the colonial knots through its new filmmaking culture. Although the protocol of decolonization in cinema may intrinsically be overwhelming since the tools, theories and language of instruction are mostly colonial bequeathals, the logic pursued here is in acknowledgment of a diffusion process that has given a voice to Africa in creative freedom and self-representation. In this paper therefore, I argue that re-imagining film practice through the lens of Nollywood currently vis-à-vis the avalanche of western bequeathed frameworks that is now being jettisoned is a form of decoloniality in praxis where the subaltern can be said to truly speak.
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