Nollywood is world‘s second largest film producer after India – UNESCO

Nigeria‘s film industry is garnering global attention as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, yesterday declared Nollywood the second world film producer.

In a global cinema survey conducted by the world body‘s Institute of Statistics and released at the UN head office in New York and UNESCO office in Paris yesterday, India kept the first position, but Nigeria has edged out the United States from the second position. The US is now number 3 after India and Nigeria, according to an Empowered Newswire report.

The survey ranks countries based on the number of films produced in a year, and not on the quality or on the turn-over of the films from those countries.

Global attention on Nollywood has been mounting in recent times, especially as Nigerian films have become hot commodity among African-Americans in the US and blacks from the Caribbean countries. Only last month, a daily US government bulletin described Nollywood as a rising star in the world of film production, paying tribute to the acumen of Nigerian actors and film producers.

Visits of famous Nigerian actors from Nigeria to the US is often a celebrity event with US-based Nigerians taking autographs from the Nollywood stars.

While the Indian film industry is known as Bollywood, the American industry is known as Hollywood and Nigeria‘s known as Nollywood. Both India and Nigeria coined their industry appellations from Hollywood.

The UNESCO survey which tallied 2006 figures revealed that Bollywood produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006 compared to 872 productions (in video format) from Nigeria‘s film industry. The United States produced 485 major films. The report quoted Nigeria, US and India as the three heavyweights in global film production.

The report actually spotlighted Nollywood further, noting what the UN statement called ”the explosive growth of Nollywood” which is now attracting ”considerable attention, especially in developing countries looking for alternatives to the U.S. or European models of film production and distribution, which require considerable investment.”

Said the report, ”To begin with, Nigerian filmmakers rely on video instead of film to reduce production costs,” adding that Nigeria has virtually no formal cinemas. About 99 per cent of screenings occur in informal settings, such as ”home theatre.”

The UNESCO survey further reveals ”another key element of the Nigerian success story: multilingualism. About 56 per cent of Nollywood films are produced in Nigeria‘s local languages, namely Yoruba (31per cent), Hausa (24 per cent) and Igbo (1 per cent). English remains a prominent language, accounting for 44 per cent, which may contribute to Nigeria‘s success in exporting its films.”

The UNESCO findings were collected through a new international survey launched by the UIS in 2007 with financing from the Government of Québec. Overall, the survey yielded data from 99 countries.

After the three ‘heavyweights‘, there were eight other countries that produced more than 100 films: Japan (417), China (330), France (203), Germany (174), Spain (150), Italy (116), South Korea (110) and the United Kingdom (104).

”Film and video production are shining examples of how cultural industries - as vehicles of identity, values and meanings - can open the door to dialogue and understanding between peoples, but also to economic growth and development. This conviction underpins the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity,” the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, said. ”And this new data on film and video production provides yet more proof of the need to rethink the place of culture on the international political agenda,” he added.

Despite its limited coverage, the survey provides a unique perspective on how different countries and regions are transforming traditional approaches to the art and industry of filmmaking, especially in video and digital formats.

The survey also revealed considerable linguistic diversity in film production in Spain and Canada. In Spain, almost 69% of films were produced in Spanish, 12% in Catalan, about 9% in English, 4% in Basque, almost 3% in French and 4% in other languages. In Canada, 67% of films were produced in English and 31% in French in 2006.

Despite these results, English remains the dominant language in filmmaking globally. In total, 36% of films produced in 2006 were shot in English, according to the survey.

US films continue to dominate admissions globally. Although the survey is not exhaustive, a clear trend seems to have emerged when considering the provenance of the top 10 films viewed in diverse countries

All of the top 10 films seen in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Namibia, Romania, and Slovenia were made in the U.S., according to the survey. There were however some notable exceptions.

Bollywood productions were the obvious favourite in India. In France, seven out of the top 10 films were French. And in Japan and Morocco, domestic productions accounted for five out of the 10 most widely viewed films.

Nigerian Nollywood Movies