Cinematic Independence: Constructing the Big Screen in NigeriaA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Cinematic Independence traces the emergence, demise, and rebirth of big-screen film exhibition in Nigeria. Film companies flocked to Nigeria in the years following independence, beginning a long history of interventions by Hollywood and corporate America. The 1980s and 1990s saw a shuttering of cinemas, which were almost entirely replaced by television and direct-to-video movies. However, after 1999, the exhibition sector was revitalized with the construction of multiplexes. Cinematic Independence is about the periods that straddle this disappearing act: the immediate decades bracketing independence in 1960, and the years after 1999. At stake is the Nigerian postcolony’s role in global debates about the future of the movie theater. That it was eventually resurrected in the flashy form of the multiplex is not simply an achievement of commercial real estate, but also a testament to cinema’s persistence—its capacity to stave off annihilation or, in this case, come back from the dead. |
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African African Cinema American films AMPECA big screen Black California Press capitalist Cinema of Nigeria Cinerama Cinestar Coca-Cola colonial committed companies Culture Daily Year Book decolonization Disney distribution distributors Duke University Duke University Press Durham Eastern Region economic edited efforts Eko Atlantic Ekwuazi Enugu exhibitors exports FESTAC Film Daily Film in Nigeria Film Industry film's FilmHouse FilmOne Folder foreign global Hawk Hollywood Hollywood studios Ibadan Ibid IMAX imperialism independence indigenous International investment Jon Lewis Jonathan Haynes Lagos Lloyd Young London lywood major Mall Mark modern Motion Picture movie theaters moviegoing MPAA MPEA multiplex Multitrax Neoliberalism Netflix Nige Nigerian Film Corporation Nollywood films Odeon Odeon Cinemas Ola Balogun Poitier political postcolonial projection promotional Quoted Shehu Shellarama Sidney Poitier Silverbird strategies television theatrical exhibition tion trade United University of California urban Victoria Island Video West Africa World York Young & Associates