Nollywood film lovers at Fespaco, Africa's film festival under way in Burkina Faso, have been bemoaning the absence of Nigerian films from the big screen.

Ezra is the only Nigerian film being shown at Fespaco and its director Newton Aduaka is actually based in France.

This has prompted accusations that snobbery is to blame for their exclusion.

"You don't have Nollywood movies here because of the discrimination against the kind of movies that we do from those who package this festival," Nigerian filmmaker Mahmoud Alie Balogun said.

"They don't feel comfortable with what we do."

But the organisers deny any wrongdoing and say Nollywood movies do not meet their standards for the feature film category.


Our style of telling stories is different to their style of telling stories

Mahmoud Alie Balogun
Nigerian filmmaker

"Our festival is for films. That means you have to bring films on 35mm and Nollywood usually makes movies on a video tape," Fespaco executive Baba Hamma says.

"But I do not think it is Nollywood's objective to come to our festivals."

By not subtitling Nollywood films, he explains, Nigeria's film industry is guilty of snubbing French-speaking countries.

Although apart from one feature film from Guinea, I have not seen a single French-language film subtitled during this year's festival.

Yet Mr Hamma claims there is no prejudice at play.

"We receive something like 500 movies and our capacity in the theatres we have in Ouagadougou is for about 200."

High drama

Mr Balogun cannot disagree more with Mr Hama's emphasis that Nollywood films do not meet Fespaco standards.

"What quality are they talking about? Are they saying that the entirety of movies from Nollywood are bad?

"Our style of telling stories is different to their style of telling stories."

Abubakar Sanogu, a Nigerian art student from Los Angeles, agrees that Nollywood films have not had the space they deserve at Fespaco, but admits that they still needed to be improved. "Nollywood started as a result of the problems of accessing celluloid film - we wanted to make films but we didn't have the money to subscribe to the fundamentalism of the 35mm. So what do you do?" Film goers in Ouagadougou need not despair however. Friday night's Fespaco schedule includes a 10-hour fest of high drama with back-to-back video screenings of Nollywood films. It may sate them for now, but the debate as to what should be at Fespaco or not is bound to continue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6412161.stm

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I've seen the FESPACO posters and almost bought one of the DVDS last time I was in Ougadougou.I've watched 1 or 2 of them on SABC as well.

Although I think the storylines are quite drab(usually set in desert terrains and moody) they are of high cinematographic quality. They are shot on celluloid and by mainly french west-african filmakers(mostly from Burkina and Senegal).Some of them have been in the business long and produce movies every couple of years, rather than churning out dozens weekly! and are well respected for their artistry.

When Nollywood shoots more movies on 35mm film instead of straight to video, and produce more films in the style of Amazing Grace and Sitanda, some nolly flicks may get screened at Fespaco.

On the flip side, the Fespaco organisers lean more towards the french audience, with films done in french, most not even subtitled, so they are prestigious but not very marketeable over africa as a whole. So if we get past this stagnant phase of producing dozens of silly movies with ridiculous storylines every week, and actually bring out some good flicks, we wouldnt need validation from FESPACO.

Nollywood's got the industry, the regional audience, the distribution and a few great practitioners to make good quality films, but they need to UP the Game somewhat!!

i quite agree with u

Gbam!