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Birth of Nollywood with Living in Bondage

1992·Culture, arts & philosophy·Nigeria, West Africa·
1992Date
Culture, arts & philosophyCategory
3Empires active
Date
1992
Category
Culture, arts & philosophy
Region
Nigeria, West Africa
Era
Contemporary
Significance

In 1992 the Nigerian businessman Kenneth Nnebue financed and produced Living in Bondage, a direct-to-video drama-thriller directed by Chris Obi Rapu and co-written with Okechukwu Ogunjiofor.

Shot cheaply on video in the Igbo language and sold on VHS cassettes straight to consumers, the film became the first Nigerian home video to achieve blockbuster commercial success, telling the story of a man who sacrifices his wife to a satanic cult for wealth and is later haunted into ruin and repentance. Its profitability demonstrated the viability of a low-cost, direct-to-video production model that bypassed expensive theatrical and broadcast infrastructure, triggering an explosion of locally produced films. This boom grew into Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry that became one of the most prolific in the world by output and a major force in pan-African and diaspora popular culture. While some historians note that earlier video films such as Soso Meji (1988) preceded it, Living in Bondage is widely regarded as the catalyst that launched modern Nollywood, and Nnebue is often called its founding father.

See the world map in 1992 →More culture, arts & philosophyThe Contemporary era

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E. H. Gombrich

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