Yet in just 13 years, Nollywood has grown from nothing into a $250 million dollar-a-year industry that employs thousands of people. The Nollywood phenomenon was made possible by two main ingredients: Nigerian entrepreneurship and digital technology.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Lagos and other African cities faced growing epidemics of crime and insecurity. Movie theaters closed as people became reluctant to be out on the streets after dark. Videos for home viewing imported from the West and India were only mildly popular. Nigerians saw an opportunity to fill the void with products of their own. Experts credit the birth of Nollywood to a businessman who needed to unload thousands of blank tapes and to the 1992 video release of Living in Bondage, a movie with a tale of the occult that was an instant and huge-selling success. It wasn't long before other would-be producers jumped on the bandwagon.

Currently, some 300 producers churn out movies at an astonishing rate—somewhere between 500 and 1,000 a year. Nigerian directors adopt new technologies as soon as they become affordable. Bulky videotape cameras gave way to their digital descendents, which are now being replaced by HD cameras. Editing, music, and other post-production work is done with common computer-based systems. The films go straight to DVD and VCD disks.

Thirty new titles are delivered to Nigerian shops and market stalls every week, where an average film sells 50,000 copies. A hit may sell several hundred thousand. Disks sell for two dollars each, making them affordable for most Nigerians and providing astounding returns for the producers.

Yet Nollywood producers releases movies that offer audiences characters they can identify with in stories that relate to their everyday lives. Western action-adventures and Bollywood musicals provide little that is relevant to life in African slums and remote villages.
Nollywood stars are native Nigerians. Nollywood settings are familiar. Nollywood plots depict situations that people understand and confront daily; romance, comedy, the occult, crooked cops, prostitution, and HIV/AIDS.

The appeal stretches far beyond Nigeria. Nollywood films are proving popular all over English-speaking Africa and have become a staple on M-NET, the South African based satellite television network. Nigerian stars have become household names from Ghana to Zambia and beyond. The last few years have seen the growing popularity of Nollywood films among African diasporas in both Europe and America.

Nollywood evolved in a market that had been disregarded by the global media industries. A professional base of television writers, directors, technicians, and actors had been nurtured by the early and extensive development of television broadcasting in Nigeria. In some parts of this densely populated country you could get five to seven channels with a simple antenna. A robust popular theater culture in the city of Lagos found an ally in the content-hungry television industry. Thus, Nigeria was rich in storytellers, professional production talent, and cheap televisions. It was an environment in which the video movie industry could flourish. Video movies circulated informally throughout the 1980s. By the early 1990s Lagos electronics traders began to capitalize on Nigerians' desire for a movie culture of their own. The market responded aggressively and the moviemakers got to work creating Nollywood.

The most significant consequence of Nollywood’s entrepreneurial origins is the autonomy it affords. The industry has never received any significant support from the Nigerian government. Neither is it dependent on support from the foreign interests that cultivate the Palme d’Or aesthetics commonly associated with the canonical films of African cinema studies—most of which are unknown to ordinary Africans. It has arisen free of the dogmas of cultural development programs and adheres to no conditions or regulation beyond censorship of the most ordinary kind. Nollywood is a product of the popular market. While the African continent still provides the primary audience, video marketers are now beginning to extend their reach worldwide to the scattered populations of expatriate Africans abroad. Even in globalization the autonomy is largely sustained. Nollywood traders are developing international markets without engaging, in any significant way, with global media corporations or the regulatory arrangements that normalize and institutionalize their dominance. Rather, the free exchange in Nigerian videos that radiates from Idumota Market in Lagos extends through networks of traders to the world's major cities and onto the Internet, reaching audiences everywhere.

What is Nollywood?
While some Nigerian video movies are produced in languages such as Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Pidgin, it is the movies in English that have moved beyond localized market niches to become popular all over Africa. Video vendors have become the predominant traders in Idumota Market in Lagos—the sprawling unplanned hub of Nigeria's informal sector that is the distribution center for the industry. Nigeria’s popular movie industry is profitable and self-sufficient and is now one of the fastest growing sectors of the Nigerian economy. While Nigerians can now dream of becoming movie stars, acting is only the most visible occupation associated with the industry. A typical ten-day shoot requires the services of more than a hundred people in a wide array of occupations. The shoot is only the beginning of the work of producing movies. Post-production including digital special effects labs and soundtrack music, packaging, advertising, distribution, and retail sales all generate additional jobs.

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