Nigerian film festival Nollywood Week returns
The festival had to be canceled last year due to Covid-19.
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The eighth edition of the Nollywood Week festival starts this Thursday, May 6, and will take place entirely online, a symbol of a cultural sector undermined by the pandemic.
The festival had to be canceled last year due to Covid-19.
For this first virtual edition, four previews and some thirty films are showing, and a lot of changes too, a bit like Nigerian cinema which is constantly adapting.
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For this first virtual edition, spectators will discover films not quite in the Nollywood style.
We are far from the love and religion stories that have made Nigerian cinema so rich.
This year, the themes relate to mental health or racial discrimination, the death of George Floyd passed by there.
The festival is therefore transformed into a platform for the defense of black communities and to contribute to them, talents from Africa and the diaspora are also part of the game.
But the Nollywood festival will keep its fundamentals, reassure the organizers, without revealing the films in competition.
There will be short and feature films in the image of the public, some produced with very limited budgets and which illustrate the tenacity of Nigerian cinema.
Indeed, Nollywood, gives birth each year to 2000 productions, which makes it one of the most important behind India, but ahead of the United States.
And the industry hopes to restart after the forced shutdown linked to Covid-19.
The reopening of cinemas last September, accompanied by the box office success of the Nigerian film "Omo Ghetto", despite the sanitary measures, is a good omen.
The thirty or so films in the running will try to win the Audience Award, awarded to the film best rated by the public.
The winning filmmaker will be awarded a range of high-end cameras to make his next film.
The Nollywood Week festival lasts until Sunday, May 6.
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The link to the Nollywood Week online Film festival
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