The film industry in Africa in recent years has been thriving with Africans telling compelling stories of their histories, cultures, and traditions. Despite not attaining the best of the world’s standard yet, in terms of the quality of movies produced, it is gradually tilting towards same.
While the African film industry continues to gain widespread appeal, the Nigerian film industry, Nollywood, remains at the fore of that evolution. It is in fact being touted currently as being as big as Hollywood. In actuality, recent statistics have shown that Africa is already competing with global standards given the recent record of twelve African countries that successfully submitted entries for the Oscars Award in 2021.
- Advertisement -
However, the film industry in the continent uses various platforms to distribute its works. Technological advancement in recent years has brought about streaming platforms and cinemas which have almost displaced the traditional CDs and DVDs that were hitherto in vogue – almost.
In a 2021 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, Africa’s cinema market was led by South Africa with a total number of 663 screens, followed by Nigeria with 237 screens, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Morocco followed with 127, 80 and 27 screens, respectively. Given the same report, one would deduce that the distribution of films is not efficiently done to cater to Africa’s numbers. In Egypt, on an average, there are 1.25 million people billed on a screen. Ethiopia and Nigeria follow with over 882 thousand and over 843 thousand people on a screen respectively. South Africa has the lowest persons to a screen due to the high number of screens available.This points to one thing, the lack of adequate distribution of films to audiences on the continent. However, streaming platforms such as Netflix, Prime Video, Showmax, etc, are also means by which films are distributed to African film lovers.
Data from Statista stated that Netflix, which has the biggest streaming market share in Africa was estimated to reach a total of 2.6 million subscribers by the end of 2021.
Another research by Digital TV Research, a platform which tracks the streaming industry forecast that the overall streaming market in Africa will be about 15 million by 2026. It also forecast that Netflix would most likely double its subscriber base in Africa from 2.6 million to 5.8 million by 2026.- Advertisement -
However, the major challenge of the streaming industry in Africa is unconnected from the ability of film buffs to afford the monthly subscription on streaming platforms, or the lack of it. Many people on the continent either live just above the poverty line or on stringent budges. Many Africans cannot afford enough data to stream movies. When you combine this with lacklustre internet penetration, it amounts to a lot of frustration for streamers. Meanwhile, these factors invariably contribute to the thriving piracy in the continent’s film industry.
In 2021, research by UNESCO showed that two-thirds of countries in Africa estimated that more than 50 per cent of their total revenue in the film industry was lost due to piracy. Though the numbers are more based on perception than facts, UNESCO noted that one-third of countries in the continent estimated that losses to piracy amount to over 75 per cent of the total revenue.
However, in order to combat the challenge of the accessibility to films in Africa, one would want to suggest an increase to the number of streaming platforms which might propel more competition and perhaps compel streamers to offer reduction in the pricing of subscription and making it affordable to the average citizens.- Advertisement -
Also, many filmmakers who are unable to get their films on major streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Video and Showmax would have alternative platforms to list their works which will hence provide more accessibility to films in Africa.
Commenting on the development, a filmmaker and founder, Sillo Studios, Nigeria, Chuks Enete, explained that the film industry in Africa needs more streaming platforms.
He noted, “With more streaming platforms comes more demand for our movies, which means more avenues for filmmakers to sell and recoup their investments, with more streaming platforms, comes the opportunity for movies on such platforms to travel farther.”Enete raised concerns about the challenges creatives in Africa have which have majorly hindered the production of creative works over the years.
He stated, “Nothing stifles creativity like the inability to recoup the investments made into a movie, in fact, the fear of not being able to recoup one’s investment has made many filmmakers lose interest in making the kind of movies on the scale they would have loved to.
- Advertisement -
“So with more streaming platforms comes some form of competition amongst these streaming platforms and what this means for African creatives and the film industry in the continent at large is that the platforms apart from offering distribution opportunities, pay more to acquire content.”
He deepened the advantage the streaming platforms will give to the industry by enabling filmmakers to have more opportunities to monetise the content they create.
“The truth is that many movies can’t even break with cinema runs alone, and many can’t travel with their movies, so with these streaming platforms comes more avenues to monetize one’s content, filmmakers are now encouraged knowing that after the cinema runs in Nigeria, there are still avenues to distribute one’s movies and make more money, this is another earning competition this brings,” Enete explained.
He added, “In fact, the prayer on most filmmaker’s lips now is to be commissioned to create content by these platforms, this takes away the stress associated with going to cinemas and having to think of marketing as the streaming platforms take care of the marketing for commissioned projects.”
In his own contribution, a UK-based Nigerian filmmaker, Obi Emelonye, stated that the African film industry is at a critical stage in its evolution.
- Advertisement -
“Satellite television offered the industry unprecedented access in many homes around Africa and further popularised the films and their stars. But as the revenue from that paradigm ran out, so did people’s interest.”
Emelonye noted that cinema emerged in the late 2000s as an alternative, but the lack of infrastructure and the prohibitive cost of cinema set-up stunted the growth of the medium before the COVID-19 pandemic brought it to its knees.
“After a few years of local experimentation with streaming platforms like Iroko TV, Ibaka TV and Afrinoly, the world’s largest streaming service, Netflix entered the Nigerian film market with a 7-film bouquet including Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 and Obi Emelonye’s Onye Ozi. It felt like a new phase had dawned for Nollywood. But the facts on the ground after nearly 8 years of operation, the entry of Amazon and the expected arrival of Disney and HBO into the fray, do not really support that optimism.”
He argued, “What is clear is that despite the advantages that the pandemic handed streaming as a medium, and in spite of catering for a mainly elite inner-city audience, Netflix has done very little to cover the vast swathes of Nigerian audiences who made the DVD so popular for Nollywood. At the moment, YouTube is trying unsuccessfully to fill that void.”- Advertisement -
On the need to have more streaming platforms on the continent, Emelonye explained, “Is another streaming platform, targeting a more inclusive demographic of Nigerians necessary? Where would the investment to set it up to compete with the Hollywood monoliths come from? Questions that economists should answer better than creatives. However, the flip side to all this is that the more these platforms emerge to take over the distribution of Nollywood films as the only sheriffs in town, the more the control of a previously proud industry is taken from local people.
“And if the trend continues unchecked, there’ll come a time in the very near future when Nollywood will be reduced to the toothless Francophone African film industry whose production and distribution are controlled by the French through grants and their inherent but indirect editorial control.”
Emelonye added, “If Nollywood’s bold and unique identity as an independent, self-sustaining practice where a poor girl from Ikorodu can make a film and monetise it, is eroded by the western powerhouses who promise billions of dollars but deliver pennies, my position is that Nollywood could be suffocated like the many Black American film movements of the last century which Hollywood infiltrated, undermined, stifled and then dumped. We have to take cognizance. Only a deaf man is killed by a locomotive.”
Asked about what needs to be done to bring films closer to the large audience Nollywood has and not make it an elite-based industry, “If I had the magic wand, I’ll brand it and sell it. I don’t. I think the solution will be a mixture of platforms, TV, streaming, cinema, VOD and sharing. If one platform is allowed to dominate at the expense of others unless that platform has the interest of the industry at heart and therefore do not make commercial self-serving decisions. Evolution should be allowed to take its course and that means competition.” he added.
- Advertisement -
With these arguments, I’ll leave the readers to determine what is best for the industry. However, one thing which stood out was the need to have more platforms (either streaming or others) which hence brings competition and the more competition arrives, the more reach, our films will get.