Alharga… Breaking Away from the Fringe - Nigerian Movies & Nollywood on Naijarules.com

vince · #1 (**permalink**) 10-03-2005, 09:11 AM

Alharga, with its frugal cast, portrays the Hausa home video as a veritable form of cultural expression and distances itself from the reeking indecent herd of the local motion picture industry, writes Olayiwola Adeniji

For close monitors of the film market in the northern part of the country, it is as exciting as the Idumota-Iweka Road axis. The only complaint by many, especially the non Hausa speakers is that it is too exclusive in the sense that there does not seem to be any serious effort at breaking borders or reaching out to non speakers of the language. Hausa movies with English subtitles are a rarity and critics are of the opinion that this is more of a disservice to the industry as many hardly see it as belonging to the mainstream.

Any talk about the Hausa movie is greeted with shock and surprise. And the question often asked is; "do they produce any movies there?" How do they handle the issue of Sharia? The assumption by many is that Nollywood is only about Yoruba and the Engl-igbo (the English-Igbo) movies. Yet, between Kano and Jos so much is happening even if constrained by limited exposure and the critical feedback that is important in defining the market. The movies may not enjoy rave reviews like the ones produced by their southern counterparts, but they are just as engaging and sometimes as mediocre. An added advantage is that while most cinema houses in the south have either been turned into warehouses or places of worship, the cinema houses in the north are still standing so that before being cut for home viewing, the film maker can actually take advantage of the numerous cinema houses. MORE