Mr Afolayan believes that audiences are looking for storytelling that feels modern while evoking Nigeria’s history
“AT THE AGE of 12 or 13, I began travelling beyond the borders of Nigeria with my father: Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast,” recalls Kunle Afolayan. It was the 1980s, and his father, Adeyemi Afolayan, a celebrated director and actor, would personally distribute his films. They were often stories about ordinary people—taxi drivers, perhaps, or farmers—overcoming difficulties. “We would go from one town to another by bus, carrying 16mm projectors,” Mr Afolayan says. It was a labour of love.
The industry in his native country was booming, earning the moniker “Nollywood”. Film-makers no longer had to trundle across the region to distribute their work: movies were burned onto CDs in their hundreds and sold in shops and markets. Film-makers started producing “tens of low-quality films a year,” Mr Afolayan says, with around 50 new movies released to the market each month, but they were of low technical quality and the storylines were tired.
. “Irapada” and “The Figurine” were supernatural thrillers which drew on Yoruba folktales and ancient rituals; both won awards at the Africa Movie Academy Awards . Toyin Falola, a professor of African Studies at the University of Texas, says that Mr Afolayan’s films are “modernising traditions, and traditionalising modernity”.
Yet box-office receipts are not Mr Afolayan’s main concern. “Nigerian films that are driven by commercial interests alone make a lot of one-off noise, but people don’t remember them in six months’ time,” he says. “That isn’t the kind of legacy I want to leave.” Most of his films have been financed through a combination of his own earnings, bank loans and individual investors, though he has now attracted funding from further afield, receiving a Ford Foundation grant to make “Citation”.
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