Nollywood, Nigeria's film industry, grew quickly in the late 90's to become the World's second largest film industry with regards to the number of movies it produces and releases. Surpassed only by Bollywood, India's film industry, Nollywood produces about 200 movies per month and is a $250 million dollar industry. (According to the wiki page)
The reason for Bollywood and Nollywood success in India, the Arab World and Africa, is that the stories produced are stories that the general population can relate to. The struggles of poverty that they experience daily, the complex relationships that children living in a globalized World have with their parents who may still be deeply entrenched in traditional cultural values, the effects of a corrupt government on the lives of the everyday person and the sheer talent that is discovered as a result.
Because of their success, their distribution has spread past their borders which means that producers have had to use official language subtitles (English, Arabic, French, German) for some of the movies using local languages. This, however, has not deterred the success and proliferation of the movies and they continue to be watched and enjoyed by millions of people around the World who can identify with the stories being told.
As Hollywood fades into the global background with poor dialogue, misogynistic music and flat comedy, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for Nollywood and African Cinema.
Amidst the chaos that is pouring out of Uganda in the past month or so including the walk to work protests and the Kill the Gays Bill, a gem has been shining through the dust raised by the furor to catch the attention of the international community.
iMANi is a movie that follows the lives of three Ugandans, taking an intimate and very personal look at their lives, the struggles they have to overcome and their placement within the vibrant and varied fabric that constitutes life in a land as diverse as Uganda. In some ways not very different from life anywhere on this planet, the characters deal with familial issues, reconciliation, corruption and navigating complicated communities for their own betterment. On the other hand their own unique perspective is projected into our minds so that for a few minutes we can inhabit their lives and deal with issues we may have never had to face.
A short interview by the film's director and producer, Caroline Kamya, reveals a number of things that are exciting for movie lovers everywhere.
There are a plethora of intricate interesting stories depicting lives outside of our own that allow us to wonder and the human spirit and resilience we hope to see in ourselves.
There is hope for the movie industry as long as we look outside Hollywood's very small tight walls.
It is time for writers, producers and directors everywhere to band together and produce entertainment that could potentially revitalize the World.
I hope that wherever you are, you will be able to see this excellent movie. Check for a screening somewhere near you!
A friend, whose crazy views I respect had purchased the DVD and was urging me to watch it because she said it was wonderful.
I had seen reviews for this movie. I had read articles that claimed Oprah didn't want Perry to do the movie and Shange was doubtful that Perry possessed the skill to pull this together. The stage play had won numerous awards and the beloved play and Choreopoetry was being taken in a different direction that people were not quite comfortable with.
So Ms. Friend and I popped some corn, got the blanket and turned down the lights to watch the movie.
Now I understand why people did not like For Colored Girls.
Human suffering is difficult to look at. When we see it, we prefer that it be dressed up, polished and made palatable (as one Rotten Tomatoes post put it) so that we can view it without being affected by it. It shames us, makes us look at ourselves in a different light, makes us wonder whether somewhere inside us cruelty like this is lying dormant waiting for the right moment to erupt.
This movie was not about men being bad, and the men were not really bad. They just had their own challenging personal issues that needed to be addressed. What many reviewers forgot was that these men were in pain themselves. But the movie was NOT about men. It was about colored girls and their stories. The character portrayals were different from the ones selected for the stage plays, but still very good.
I love good spoken word poetry - not the faint warblings I sometimes had to bear through at my local spoken word spot - but the deep soul searching words that echo my feelings, reconnecting me to the stranger seated next to me, entranced by the words that bind us together as human beings on this journey. So when the excellent actors lunged into it head on, I found myself caught up like the froth of the sea, taken across the vast experiences colored women have endured for centuries across the World
I applaud Mr. Perry for taking on subjects that affect black women, subjects that big movies poke lightly with sticks just to watch them ooze then turn away. He held it right up to our faces and forced us to smell it, made us touch it, made us so completely uncomfortable I had to turn away from the screen many times.
The actors did an exceptional job, pithy in their portrayals of the characters chosen to depict the characters in Shange's book. Even if my experience was not exactly the same theirs - rape, abortion, domestic abuse, betrayal, mental illness - their pain resonated with my own. The acknowledgement of the pain was all that mattered, that it is okay for a colored girl to say I hurt. I'm in pain.
As the war between Tyler Perry and Spike Lee heated up last week, causing plumes of dust to be raised by the rubble of viewers that littered the country side, a quiet unassuming movie about the often complicated and unexplored emotions surrounding loss continued to rise up, reaching for the Blockbuster list.
I Will Follow, a movie about one day in the life of a woman grieving a lost aunt and the twelve visitors who pass by was written and directed by Ava DuVernay. It has been described as tender, complex, soulful, passionate and interesting.
Ms. DuVernay is no newbie to the movie directing scene. Her very successful documentary about Hip Hop in South Central L.A. and its roots at The Good Life debuted in 2008 and won several awards including Best Documentary at the Hollywood Black Film Festival, Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival and Documentary Toronto Reel World Film Festival. You can check out the trailer for that documentary here. She also produced two network documentaries, My Mic Sounds Nice - an interesting look into the history of black women in the hip hop industry from artists like Missy Elliot and MC Lyte and the second on the Essence Music Festival 2010.
In a critical time of story telling, when Hollywood has raised the battle call for America's entertainment money, the black community doesn't have many voices lending their own to the fray. We know we are dying to hear more, to see more of ourselves that doesn't include the wildly caricatured characters who are either stuck in a place of perpetual comedy (which we do not mind sometimes) or involved in a shootout (which we don't mind either).
Trailer - I Will Follow
If you are in the DC area, get yourself to the West End Cinema to see this movie, then come back and tell us what you thought about the movie.
Have you seen the movie "I Will Follow"? What are your thoughts about it? Would you go to see it in the movie theater if it was released on the big screen?
Once again the news headlines and blogosphere are a-buzz with Tyler Perry news, different sources (Clutch Magazine Online) citing the comments Perry made about Lee and the things he was saying. Here are some commentaries:-
Ta-Nehisi Coates offers, Tyler Perry has the right to make movies we don't like just as much as Spike Lee does.
My personal favorite is Black & Bougie's prayer that we all realize he ain't Jesus, nor is he Satan.
I get it. When we have a small measly handful of black directors filming black shows and movies in Hollywood, it is very easy to get protective of them, pick sides, set up the cannons and
I'm a Mr. Tyler Perry fan. I may not have loved all his movies, but then again there is no artist (except myself) whose work I love all the time. I'm not a Spike Lee fan and loved Malcolm X but wanted to peel his skin off slowly for She Hate Me. See how it is done?
At Qalil, we have covered our own appreciation of the Tyler Perry Phenomenon. His story is the story we like to hear, that if we dream, work hard and chase our dreams we will eventually realize them all. It is the quintessential all American dream - which many of us have.
I think the important thing for us to remember - even as we debate their conflict and TP showing SL the yellow brick road to the fiery smoldering sulphuric pits of Hell - is that it is quite okay to love Spike Lee and enjoy Tyler Perry's movies. It really is.
I am an avid fan of the work of Viola Davis. When I first took notice of her work in Law & Order in the episode "Badge" I was taken aback by the dedication to her role and knew right away that she is the kind of artist that makes you love her work. You cannot turn away from her powerful performance.
Whenever she has any work coming out I rush to find out all I can about the work, prepare myself weeks ahead for the movie, read the book if the movie is an adaptation, then sit back and enjoy her interpretation. Did I say I love Viola Davis? Just in case you didn't hear it - I LOVE VIOLA DAVIS!
So, I'm trolling the interwebs, reading the blogs I subscribe to, catching up on useless news and other clever articles when suddenly I come across a trailer of The Help. It is a movie based on a novel written by a first time author, Kathryn Stockett, who grew up in the south at a time when the help used different bathrooms.
I cannot give you a better gist of the movie than the trailer. Go on. Click play.
Sigh. Double sigh. Triple sigh.
My problem (I still love you Viola Davis) is that we are telling these kinds of stories too. Stories like these exist from our perspective that show a different kind of independence and quest for freedom and equal rights that cannot be understood by people who lived under the white privilege.
It is like a boat trying to tell the story of the sea. What does the boat know of the beautiful creatures that live within it? The crags it hides behind when it escaping from an enemy bent on devouring it for dinner, the cycle of life it has to traverse from hatching or birth all the way to death, raising its spawn within the murky depths that the boat cannot reach. What does the boat know of the sea?
I want to watch this movie, if only to support the actors in it (who have to work too) and I may do my entire MPR (Movie Preparation Routine), but nothing will ever dampen my desire to see so many of the novels written by black women who have experienced the oppression of the 1950s and 60s, translated into movies and I know many of us feel the same way.
Sigh. Let's keep writing folks.
What did you think about the trailer? Will you go to watch The Help?
Jailed!
Scared Straight
News! News!
Slavery is funny?
