South African Movie Industry Vs Nollywood

All this fuss about nollywood being the bomb in the limelight in terms of film production in africa, you have to hand it over to south africa.

Two years in a roll their films were nominated for academy awards ( yesterday and tsosti )and "nillywood " basks in the euphoria of quantity never quality.

I must give it to nollywood for making some good flicks on shoe string budgets and use of digital cameras, but coming to professionalism quality south africa  got to have it.

Go and ask Jamaicans, Ugadans, Namibia and other nationals, Nigeria is the best in Africa.


We are the biggest video market in the world.

That's not true.  Most Nollywood films I've watched have been distinctly and regretably Nigerian.  Nollywood is not at all an American wannabe industry; Nigerian films are, unfortunately, faithful to our culture.

Yeah.  Our culture is too primitive.  Example: there are educated Nigerian mothers who will tell their daughters who are being abused and almost killed by their husbands in front of their children that "suuru" (patience) is the answer.  We see that in the movies too.  The movies reflect the primitive state of our culture.

What story lines do we have in Nollywood? When a story line is predictable what do you call it? Mediocre!

Nollywood IMO, still lack good sound quality (no coordination in camera movement and sound) and better imaging in most of their movies. But i think they're getting there. And oh, i can't stand most of their court scenes. I thought the contemporary way to address a jugde is 'your honour' and not 'my lord'.  And whats with all the wigs and gown them lawyers wear. yuck. Maybe i've been watching a lot of Law and Order.

I have to agree (not with all my mind of course).

Nigerian movies are like QUANTITY, not quality. They make like 300 useless movies every 2 weeks. But you see this south-african movies, they do one movie,  and it's like BAM. When a movie wins an oscar, please tell me wat else describes awesome. No Nigerian movie ever won "kids choice award"!

Nigerian movies are improving, but uhmm,  i getting pretty sick of "university girls movies", "wicked mother in law movies", "aristo papa movies",  and other movies that are re-make of older ones.

I think we should give kudos to our movie industry and I think they are the best in Africa.
They might not get all right but still they are the best.
If they get govt. assistance like their counterparts in other countries they will do better than them.

I do watch South Africa movies, with no sentiments, I don't see them equating  ours.
I believe they equate Ghana in terms of play and story.

We realy must give kudos to the home video industry( how they came to be named Nollyhood is so embarassing) for at least giving some people jobs. As much as I love Nigeria, i cannot stand most home videos. I have this unfair notion that the more of it one watches, the lower one's IQ becomes. Creativity is totally ignored and as far as technicalities are concerned, the Sout Africans are ahead by  some miles.

There are very few good contents in our home videos; the scripts were not the results of good thinking.

About two months ago, I was in a cafe where the inside of the cafe was being used for recording a home video.I was so shocked when the director moved the camera and crew to our area and co-opted us into extras without our permission. The receptionist in the cafe was the same they used in the film.No information; no excuse-they just shot and left.

There are few one can stomach though mainly the works of Tunde Kelani,Amaka Igwe,Tade Ogidan and whenever Ego Boyo decides to shoot a film.(she is married to one of Oando's founders)

What matters in entertainment is not "technology" or quality".  what matters is how you make people feel the feelings they want to feel, and in this respect Nollywood movies are up there.  They serve typical, less exposed, Nigerians very well.

lmao @ Seun. how can you say "What matters in entertainment is not "technology" or quality?" the same technologies and quality are factors that make up a good movie, not stereotyped bullshit produced in Nigeria. Nollywood my ass. if what matters is how the movies make people feel the feelings they want to feel, then what's the use of Nollywood as an entertainment industry? Even a blind man can see the heap of trash being produced everyday.All stereotypical nonsense exhibited to the Nigerian, to the extent that the whole movie is predictable and not worth a watch. if there's one thing Nollywood beats South Africa with, it's QUANTITY not QUALITY.

and oh,  one more thing,  Wesley Snipes (when he came to Nigeria) said Nigeria does not make movies, we make Home Videos 

Nigerian Movies,

Not me, in fact, I dont think we can say we have a Movie Industry, its all crap, the same actors, the same lines, the same everything. 300 movies in two weeks = a whole lot of crap. Anyway, at least we are following the foot-steps of Bollywood.

Yes Zahymaka, the posters tell you the whole story, the titles are the most anonying to me, especially if its a story about a man getting another mans wife, everything is spiritualized? too much of juju and evil power. My question is: Cant these peeps just act out something else. Ive not watched too many South African movies, but the few nigerian ones that ive watched, im already tired of it.

Depends on your tastes. Yes it did win Best South African Movie of the Year the year it was released [I think 2004]. And yes, Leon Schuster is a South African.

i just looooooooooooooove sarafina!

'freedom is coming tomorrow!'

Yeah.  Our culture is too primitive.  Example: there are educated Nigerian mothers who will tell their daughters who are being abused and almost killed by their husbands in front of their children that "suuru" (patience) is the answer.  We see that in the movies too.  The movies reflect the primitive state of our culture.

this is clearly someone that has never lived outside of his country of has any self respect for his culture. the same stupid advice that you say nigerian mothers give their daughters is given to american daughters by thier mothers. it has nothign to do with primitive culture, but stupidity.  OJ simpson's wife was given the same advice by her family and she ended up dead.

nevertheless while i pray the quality of nigerian movie production improves, it has instrintic appeal becasue the stories are entertaining. even countries like ivory coast and senegal make better technical movies, but no one bothers to watch them because they are boring. though south africa makes good technical movies, and have won oscars, they are not that popular, despite the oscar tag. I hav had people from trinidad, jamaica, haiti, senegal, etc send me nigeria movies because they absolutely love them.  Nigerian movies are akin to bollywood flicks, in that they appeal to a certain taste, one that seeks enertainmnt, moreso than merely technical skills.

Hopefully in time we improve the technical aspect, but don't lose the heart of story telling ability.  think of it in terms of our literature. nigerians know how to tell a story. though south africa has more nobel prize winners, more people know of our writers like achebe, soyinka, ekwensi and the rest, and would have a hard time mentioning south african writers or pplacing them on the same level as nigerian writers

lets face it nigerian movie are a reflection of nigeria state lazy people rushing to make fast money and are just putting it out for there nigeirna fan who regreatable like it,if we can combine the resources of 10 movie into one movie we might be look at an academy award,Also nigeria is in the "obasanjo age" no discipline no law no demand no supply just kick and follow any way this is my view