| 25352 |
abstract |
Since Haynes’s publication of Nigerian Video Films in 1997, the young Nigerian video
production has seen a multiplication defying both statistics and established conventions.
Offering a mix of urban scenes and village encounters, appealing to both youths and
families, reaching out to local audiences in several Nigerian languages including
Pidgin and Engligbo, these films have now spilled out of Nigeria to reach the rest
of Africa and beyond. This production now attracts a growing number of scholarly papers,
with most of the publications emanating from Nigeria and the US and focusing on linguistic
features, the treatment of politics, violence and religion in the films, their presentation
of women and urban centres or their reception outside the country. While most of those
films, produced in Lagos, are set in large towns, usually Lagos, the ancestral village
is nearly always the scene of at least one family encounter. Surprisingly, the place
of the characters’ ancestral home in this production is yet to be fully investigated.
This paper considers 25 video films – The Battle of Muzanga (1996), Echidime (1996),
Evil Men (1998), Okosisi (1999), Earthquake (1999), Izaga (1999), Calabash (2000),
Evil Forest (2000), Seeds of Bondage (2001), The Village Hunter (2001), Evil Seed
(2001), Conspiracy (n.d), Allegation (2002), In the Beginning (2002), Pound of Flesh
(2002), Peacemakers (2003), All My life (2004), Good News (2005), Moonlight (2005),
Silence of the Gods (2006), Snake Girl (2006), My Mother’s Decision (2006), Divine
Twins (2007), End of Pride (2007), Essence of Life (2007) - to evaluate the importance
of the village in the scenarios, its cultural, traditional and religious input and
the role it has so far been assigned by film directors. |