Nollywood’s potential is immense, but reaching it will require more than just conversations.
By Joseph Jonathan
Over the last decade, the Nigerian film industry, otherwise known as Nollywood has undergone significant growth with Nollywood films being screened at local and international film festivals, bagging awards and its stars feted on the red carpet.
The increased attention and profile that Nollywood now enjoys has also translated into more speaking events, with industry stakeholders in high demand as speakers, panelists, and thought leaders.
From panel discussions at film festivals to movie premières, conferences, and workshops, the Nollywood calendar is filled with events that provide a platform for industry stakeholders to share their insights, promote their work, and connect with audiences.
These gatherings bring together filmmakers, critics, investors, and policy makers to deliberate on the challenges and opportunities within the Nigerian film industry. Yet, despite their popularity and frequency, these events often leave observers asking the same question: what tangible impact do they have?
On November 27th, Jade Osiberu, one of Nollywood’s most prominent filmmakers, took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to express her frustration over the plethora of speaking events in the industry. In her words, “please less speaking events next year, more strategic thinking and collaborative work”.
Her critique highlighted an uncomfortable truth: while these events create the illusion of progress, they rarely translate into actionable change. In an industry where talking has become a substitute for doing, Osiberu’s words raise the urgent question of whether it’s time to rethink this model.
However, to avoid a situation where we put the cart before the horse, it is important to consider why speaking events are prevalent in the industry.
For one, organising a speaking event is relatively straightforward. For instance, it is way easier to organise a 30-minute talk where a director shares tips to upcoming filmmakers than to host a dedicated one month training for the same purpose.
Unlike the logistical complexities of launching a training program, a panel discussion requires little more than a venue, microphones, and a list of speakers. Participation, too, is simple. As a result, most industry stakeholders often see these events as low-risk, low-effort ways to maintain visibility and relevance within the (Nollywood) community.
Similar to the above is the fact that for many attendees, the primary attraction of these events is the opportunity to network.
These gatherings offer a chance for people to exchange business cards, pitch ideas, and cultivate relationships that might lead to future collaborations. While networking is important in every industry, overreliance on it can often overshadow the need for tangible results, thereby reducing these events to mere courtesy calls rather than platforms for strategic growth and development.
Why Nollywood Events Fall Short
Everywhere you look in Nigeria, there’s an industry event taking place, whether it’s a movie première, or a simple Twitter space. There could probably be one taking place as I write this piece.
Despite the frequency of these events, the pertinent question is, what is the ultimate goal of these gatherings? Because at nearly every Nollywood gathering, the agenda remains the same: funding challenges, storytelling standards, distribution bottlenecks, and the quest for international collaboration.
These are undeniably critical issues. However, the repetitive nature of these conversations reveals a troubling lack of change in how they are addressed.
Part of the reason why the numerous industry events are mostly uneventful and lacking impact is that instead of building on past discussions and tracking progress, these events often feel like a reset button, with participants revisiting old debates as if for the first time.
For instance, the funding problem — a recurring topic at industry events — often generates ideas like government grants, and public-private partnerships. Surprisingly, there has been little change in the systemic realities that make financing Nollywood films such a challenge in the first place.
Recently, there were rumours of streaming giant, Netflix, cutting off funding for new Nollywood originals and it sent the whole industry into a frenzy. However, as is typical of the industry, conversations around this development have been more about complaints and blame games rather than seeking actionable solutions. For an industry that has long been labelled as having no “structure,” it is not unsurprising that we’re still struggling to respond to challenges in a strategic manner that would yield results.
As a result, the industry is left stuck in a cycle of dialogue without development, where the same problems are discussed ad nauseam without any meaningful shift in policy, practice, or outcomes. To make matters worse, the energy and resources invested in these events could be channeled into initiatives that could yield more concrete results in development.
Too Many Speaking Events?
In hindsight, Osiberu’s tweets calling for less speaking events next year invariably means that Nollywood has too many events, but is that really the case?
For an industry like Nollywood that is fast-growing, critical engagement is needed and these events offer such. Therefore, it would be a disservice to say that there are too many events.
Perhaps the focus should shift from the quantity of events to their quality and impact. These events have the capacity to facilitate the “critical thinking and collaborative work” that Osiberu suggests. However, in order to achieve this, actionable steps have to be taken to ensure the effectiveness of said events.
For starters, event organisers must prioritise specific, measurable outcomes over broad, open-ended discussions. This would help attendees to focus on achieving tangible results rather than just engaging in dialogue. As such, the success of these events would be based on the outcomes and actions that result from them rather than just the number of attendees.
For instance, instead of just hosting a series of talks and panels at a conference on “Empowering Women in Nollywood”, there could be a specific goal, such as launching a mentorship program that pairs 20 emerging female filmmakers with established industry professionals within the next year.
Industry events should not end when the microphones are turned off. Therefore, it is important that organisers publish follow-up reports tracking the progress made on agreed initiatives.
These reports could highlight successes, identify obstacles, and keep stakeholders accountable. This ensures that the industry fosters a culture of responsibility and continuous improvement.
In order to increase the likelihood of tangible outcomes from industry events, there needs to be careful curation of both speakers and audiences.
More often than not, Nollywood events suffer from speaker-audience mismatch where the expertise or message of the speakers fails to align with the needs, interests, or level of expertise of the audience, resulting in a lack of engagement, relevance, and ultimately, tangible outcomes.
To this end, event organisers need to ensure that audiences are properly matched with the right speakers. This could be achieved through pre-event surveys or interviews with potential attendees to understand their specific needs, challenges, and interests. This information can then be used to select speakers who possess the relevant expertise and can address the attendees’ concerns.
Nollywood’s potential is immense, but reaching it will require more than just conversations. As Jade Osiberu aptly pointed out, the time has come to move beyond endless dialogue and embrace the hard work of doing, or as the neo-philosopher, Odumodublvck, said “Nor be all this cho cho cho! Show working! Show working!”
Joseph Jonathan is a historian who seeks to understand how film shapes our cultural identity as a people. He believes that history is more about the future than the past. When he’s not writing about film, you can catch him listening to music or discussing politics. He tweets @JosieJp3.