News From Nollywood

Born in the 1990s in Lagos, the Nigerian Nollywood film industry has long been confined to Z movies. Thirty years later, it has become the second largest film producer in the world, with over 2,000 films produced each year. The term "Nollywood" is commonly used to refer to this incredible wave of films, even though Nigerian cinema comprises many regional, cultural and linguistic variants. One of the particularities lies in the fact of evoking societal or clearly educational issues in mainstream and popular films: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti is a biopic of Fela Kuti's mother, a committed politician and precursor of feminist movements, Áfàméfùnà evokes Igbo culture, Black Harvest addresses kidnapping and organ trafficking.

Three dense, action-packed films, plus a round-table discussion Discovering Nollywood (to be held on Wednesday 22 at 18:30) with the filmmakers present, will give an insight into a cinema that cannot be ignored.