A Foreigner's take on Nollywood
Berks Film Fest 2008: Interview with Jamie Meltzer
By Patty Mahlon
Reading Eagle Internet Services
Virtually non-existent in 1990, the Nigerian film industry (“Nollywood”) is now the third largest in the world. Jamie Meltzer, a film professor at Vassar and the director of the beloved PBS song-poem documentary “Off The Charts” explores the little known yet burgeoning movie phenomenon in his latest film“Welcome to Nollywood,” which plays at the R/C Theaters Reading Movies 11 & IMAX Saturday Oct. 4 at 4:45 pm as part of the Berks Movie Madness Film Festival. Admission is $7.
Patty Mahlon: Why did you decide to make a film about the Nigerian film industry?
Jamie Meltzer: I was finishing up the “Off The Charts” documentary, which basically took me four years to complete. “Off The Charts” was a great filmmaking process for me, but it was also a very frustrating process because it took so long. There was a lot of fundraising involved and I had to overcome all these obstacles just to make the film.
At the height of my frustration toward the end of it, when I really just wanted to be done with the film, I read about Nollywood and these filmmaker who were making films in two to three weeks and then immediately getting the films out on video to their audiences. These are filmmakers creating an industry with absolutely no support from their government – independent filmmakers – who have made an incredible market all on their own terms. And I thought, wow, first of all, this is a very surprising industry and idea out of Africa, because I haven’t heard of it, and it breaks a lot of stereotypes. And secondly, I think this is a good lesson for American independent filmmakers. I wanted to learn how they do it.
So I started contacting people in Nigeria. I didn’t learn a whole lot until I actually went there and spent two months filming different directors.
PM: What was it like shooting in Nigeria?
Jamie Meltzer: It was great in a sense, because I was very warmly welcomed. Everyone was excited that this American filmmaker was there, even though they didn’t quite know what I was all about. They were very excited about someone who had an interest and a respect for what they did. They saw it as an opportunity to exchange information.
The actual filming was really difficult. In the film you see this in the way that the lights go out every couple hours. That was something I, as a filmmaker, had to contend with as well. I didn’t have as much practice as they did, and I didn’t expect it like they did. It took me all day to get through an interview or follow someone around, when if I was working on a documentary in the US that would take maybe an half hour.
So I basically had to roll with it and make the best of what I had. I sort of absorbed what I saw and what they did and the way they molded their approaches and their styles to meet the circumstances at hand. It gave me a better sense of them as filmmakers just trying to make a film there myself.
PM: How many Nollywood films had you watched before going into this?
Jamie Meltzer: I looked at 30 or 40 of them that were sent from a contact of mine there who’s a producer. He sent me all the ones he thought were interesting or popular. The first thing I did was get a sense for what the genres were, and what kind of films these are. There’s a pretty wide array.
I started to become less interested in the idea of explicitly showing what the films were about and going through all the genres. That sort of study of Nollywood didn’t really interest me. What was interesting to me was the way the industry was established. And then when I got there, I saw the struggle to overcome all the obstacles I just talked about. So my films is less an exploration of the films of Nollywood and more a look at the enterprise of it all. It’s about the formation of Nollywood and how that happened.
The other thing that happened when I got all these videos: a lot of the films were the same. Like Hollywood, their films got predictable after a while. I looked at one film in particular by Izu Ojukwu, who ended up being one the main filmmakers in my film. And his film was totally different in style and visual approach. Everything about it completely stood out. He went against everything I had heard about what Nollywood was. I mean, it was clear he didn’t shoot these things very quickly as throwaway pieces. It was clear he spent a lot of time visualizing and lighting them in a way all the other films didn’t. So I realized he would have to be an important character. And I was able to get in touch with him once I got there.
PM: What happened to his film “Laviva?” I looked up the film on IMDB and I saw it had a release date.
Jamie Meltzer: “Laviva” didn’t really come out yet. It’s a very complicated market there. Since I left, he’s made at least two or three films a year. So he’s made something like 10 to 12 films since I left. Most Nollywood filmmakers make a lot more than that in a year. He’s won many awards. He won the equivalent to best picture at the Academy Awards for the picture he made after “Laviva.” So he’s now a very famous, well-respected filmmaker there. He was just on the cusp of that when I was filming him.
“Laviva” itself is very precious to him. It’s a very personal film. In my film you see he’s putting his own money into it. He really put his heart into it. The stakes were high. So he’s waiting to roll it out at the exact right time in Nigeria. He wants it to be the film that might change the way people look at him and the way they look at the industry. It’s already been in a couple festivals with my film. It premiered at a film festival here in California, and it got a really good reception. There were more people at that film then there were at my documentary! So I think there is some interest in Nollywood.
PM: Are all Nollywood films shot in English?
Jamie Meltzer: Yes, in the industry I followed. Within Nollywood are several different industries. In terms of language, Nigeria is comprised of many different tribal communities, like the Yoruba and the Igbo, which is sort of the business class. And then there’s the Hausa; they live in the north and are Muslim. They all have their own languages. And then they all speak English as well, because there are so many different languages at play that you have to have some sort of common ground. There’s also the fact that Nigeria was colonized by the English. So the national language is English, and the main film industry I followed – which is considered the mainstream Nollywood – makes its films in English. There are other industries that film in tribal languages. I decided not to cover that because it really wouldn’t make sense for an American audience. It would create a whole layer of distance that didn’t need to be there.
PM: How many films has Chico/Mr. Prolific made since you were there?
Jamie Meltzer: Oh, I don’t even know. I can’t even keep track, and he doesn’t always say. He embraces his name “Mr. Prolific.” I think at the same time he might be a little embarrassed. Like someone says in the film, “What does he think this is, a bakery?” He’s sometimes a little shy about talking about how much he’s really done. It’s hard to find out, because there are so many films put on the marketplace. He’s probably done at least 20 or 30 films since then. I know he’s also moved more into TV production since then.
In fact, when I returned to Nigeria the second time – I was in Nigeria two different times over two different summers – the second time I returned I already knew all these guys very well. I ended up starring in a soap opera that Chico was making, just because I was around. Basically, I owed him a favor because I had him in my film. It was quite an experience to have the tables turned. And later I found out that the soap opera aired and all these people saw it. Apparently, it was well-received. Although I don’t think I’m a very good actor.
PM: What was your role in the show? Was it an action role?
Jamie Meltzer: My role was sort of this obnoxious American who’s trying to marry a Nigerian woman. I’m only about 5’7”, and the woman was 6’2”, so it was sort of a ridiculous visual. I go to meet her parents, sort of flail around, and then get in a fight with some Nigerian fellow who’s not very happy about my interest in her. It was a whole cross-cultural, interracial thing going on. It was interesting. I felt it was very stereotypically and almost – not really racist – but very stereotypical in terms of its look at white America. I almost thought, “OK, this is just desserts for all the representations of Africans and African Americans in the mainstream media, Hollywood, and even independent films for the last hundred years or so.
PM: When you were following Izu and things were starting to get salty with the crew, how did you handle that?
Jamie Meltzer: I’m a teacher, and I can only film for a certain amount of time in the summer before I have to go back. So what happened was: we were there for two months and came to the very end of the summer. I had been waiting three weeks at that time for Izu’s production to start up. There was a lot of tension and a lot of waiting around. Eventually I had to leave. So I actually trained a Nigerian guy I had been using as a production assistant. He was a great production assistant and I ended up training him on camera. I trained another guy on how to do sound. And I left them all my equipment. When I left, Izu’s production had really just started, so a lot of the footage in maybe the last ten minutes of the film were shot by the production assistant. It has a certain level of intimacy with the crew that I wouldn’t have been able to get, because I was closer to the director. So when they’re yelling at the camera, and when there’s all this tension between the camera and the crew and there's a lot of action you wouldn’t expect to see play out in front of someone not from there, it’s filmed by someone from there.
PM: You said earlier that with "Off The Charts" you got bogged down with fundraising when trying to get your film circulating. Did you have to deal with any of that? Or did the immediacy of what you were filming prevent some of that?
Jamie Meltzer: Like I said before, one of the things that attracted me to Nollywood was that the independent filmmakers have achieved something that we have not. We don’t have an independent film industry that’s as vibrant as Nigeria’s. And Nigeria took digital video and got mileage out of it that no one expected. That was my approach, too. I took a low-cost video cameras and equipment and traveled with just two other people and made this film with a tiny crew in just two months. Then, of course, I planned on finishing it within six months after that and then really ramp up the entire finishing schedule. But it did take a long time. I started in 2004, but it didn’t play any festivals until 2007. So I shaved off a year of time compared to "Off The Charts," but I still think I need to do some shaving in terms of projects from conception to completion.
PM: Do you have another project in the pipeline?
Jamie Meltzer: I’m finishing up a short documentary about a town in Mexico seven hours south of the US border that created a theme park that would attract people from all over Mexico to come out to this town and go on a simulated border crossing, where they would pretend to cross the border. They intend it as a way to raise awareness for what people go through crossing the border. It should be at festivals within the next year.
PM: How has Welcome to Nollywood been received? Has it increased interest in Nigerian films?
Jamie Meltzer: I don’t think it’s increased interest. The Nigerian industry is just so young. If you think about it, the time when the US industry was this young. I mean, you’re talking 1903 before DW Griffith; before the language or grammar of film had been established. You had one-shot wonders. Poorly edited films. Three-minute films.
The Nigerian industry is really in its infancy. It’s still defining itself. I think in the next ten years the industry will really land on its feet in terms of having a place our world of media. That’s what’s left to conquer. They conquered Africa. The next frontier is our landscape. And I think it’ll be a few years, but I think Nollywood films will play in festivals, theaters, and might eventually start winning Academy Awards.
Comments