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I have screened
excerpts from my films, “BARIGA BOY” and “ORIKI.’ In them are the core
ideas around which I have concentrated my work as a filmmaker. My
philosophy is that I am not just a filmmaker, I am an African Filmmaker.
That is an identity that I take seriously and it is an identity that
inspires my content. I believe that my art and my identity are
interconnected and must feed each other. The idea and the context and
culture of the artist shape his work. Filmmaking as all artistic
undertakings, is a cultural practice and every form of its
interpretation enriches and projects the experiences of a culture as
captured from the artist’s perspective.

The Nigerian
Nollywood film industry was born of this understanding and over the last
12-15years it has found a global audience amongst Africans and
immigrants in the Diaspora. Whilst we readily admit its technical
deficiencies, Nollywood films have become a critical connector for many.
Across the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, Cuba, as far as
China and Australia and all across Africa, Nollywood as a filmmaking
phenomenon is less about the fictional narratives and more about the
interactivity of its visual messaging.

The Nollywood movie
industry is young, revolutionary and organic. It is young in the sense
that movie making became a phenomenon in Nigeria only in recent years.
It is revolutionary in the sense that it represents a radical break with
the past. It did not have much history to go by and yet it has made
international impact. More importantly, it is organic in the sense that
it has a life of its own and it grows on its own steam. The Nigerian
movie has its primary audience within the society in which it is
produced, and this has been its most important attribute.

In every effective
way, Nollywood is a form of pseudo documentary-making, showcasing the
issues and conflicts and complexities of living the African experience
in a way that is practical and to which Africans are connecting. While
fiction, its narratives and sources are based on realities and
actualities. It is a powerful form that has also inspired a new
generation of filmmakers across the continent who are energised by the
opportunity to make their voices heard. In this emerging globalisation,
cultural distinctions and dissection aid understanding as well as
protect and preserve diversity. Documentaries are critical to helping us
express our individualities within the blurred boundaries of the global
community.

Deeper understanding

Cultures are in real
and present danger of extinction. I am Yoruba. And my culture for
instance is ancient with an amazing history full of spiritual
mythologies. Its essence is profiled in family values, community,
respect courtesy and individual responsibilities of integrity, industry,
diligence and courage. For hundreds of years, that culture has survived
through history passed on by word of mouth. Today, technology makes it
possible to document this culture, to interrogate it and project its
mysteries in a way that inspires a sense of belonging and pride.

Documentaries are
also important today, less as mere recordings or archiving tools of
events and history and more for how they shape our thinking and mediate
our experiences. That is a very important consideration if you accept
the idea that whilst technology and globalisation have made our lives
easier, they have blurred our understanding of what is truth. Everything
is complex and whilst you may have access to the facts of a situation,
the truth of it has many sides. I believe the capacity of the
documentary form to go beyond the news cycle and present to us
perspectives, gives us a deeper understanding that is useful in an era
where the news cycles are overtly political.

Telling Africa’s story

Western colonialists
used documentaries to shape group behaviour and manipulate perception
and history. In Africa today, the narrative of the global information
order preserves an unfortunate soundbite that feeds our economic
ostracisation. The perspectives of experiences defined is at best narrow
and one-sided. For Africa, the global information order presents a
narrative of wars, death, corruption and diseases. The question is: ‘who
is telling the story of Africa and its realities and from what
perspective?’ Can African filmmakers bring better understanding within
and outside the continent with documentaries that give a more rounded
definition of the African experience?

Today, Africa
continues to be a hotbed of economic and socio-political change. From
Tunisia to Egypt and now Libya. The primary questions are as urgent as
they are fundamental: How can filmmaking serve the interests of Africa?
How can it force the development agenda of Africa into global
consciousness? How can it educate the world about the tremendous
opportunities in Africa and highlight the importance of this continent?
What are Africa’s strengths in a fiercely competitive global economic
environment? And how do we create and grow a sustainable business model
for African films to thrive? These questions underscore an important
part of my own personal philosophy. My work, not just as a filmmaker,
but as an “African Filmmaker” is very important and vital to the
sustenance of my own identity and even more ambitiously, my work is
vital to the economic and social transformation of my community.

Africa in dialogue

There is a dialogue
on-going. Africa is in a conversation with itself concerning the shape
of its future. A new order identifying new voices and new leaders,
propagating new values of accountability, transparency, fair
competition, social justice and economic empowerment is emerging. It is a
revolution of immense significance that is bringing a new optimism and
pride about our future.

Documentary
filmmaking can be at the centre of shaping these discourses — guiding
and laying bare the issues. The images of Africa’s emerging new order of
political social and economic regeneration needs to get out there. The
responsibility cannot be that of those outside of the experience.
African filmmakers have a responsibility to mediate these perspectives
because they have the privilege of their craft and the audience it
attracts. Back in 1935, the pioneering British documentary filmmaker,
Paul Rotha, declared that, “above all documentary must reflect the
problems and realities of the present.” Rotha was a socially-conscious
director who believed that the role of the documentary filmmaker was to
help change the world for the better. I subscribe to that but will add
that the filmmaker must also question the nature of truth and reality.
That is a key contention as governments and economic manipulators fully
understand and use the documentary medium well as propaganda tools
rather than for its more affecting power to educate, elevate and
inspire. Today, its boundaries are being stretched to keep up with the
unreality of the real world. But the documentary form is a generous
basket and it holds a lot of different things, after all, It is
structured reality.

Many recent
documentaries also denote a generational shift in both style and subject
matter, away from the political towards the emotional. There is a sense
in which also the grand narratives globally are that people are living
in an age of uncertainty; and documentary increasingly reflects that,
because documentary as an art form is traditionally progressive. Which
is why as Awam Akpam affirmed at the iRep Documentary Festival in Lagos
in January, documentaries are way too important to be left in the hands
of institutions. It should be in the hands of the population. Today,
everything is happening at the speed of light – fast foods, fast cars
fast communications, fast revolutions as we have seen all over the
Middle East recently. All human experiences are moving at a rapid pace,
requiring not only documentation historically, but perspectives and
interpretations and individual voices to be heard. There is definitely a
new energy for documentaries by people who need to tell their stories
and can suddenly afford to do so. We are living in a time when young
filmmakers in particular are increasingly turning towards documentary as
a way to make sense of the world they live in. They are more alert
about and suspicious of the mainstream media and eager for a form that
talks to them about real events in a real way even if that form is rough
or even low-key. It’s a very exciting and ground-breaking time for the
transformative power of the visual arts. People are looking for bigger
truths. There is a hunger for narratives that are personal, broad in
scope and with integrity in its perspectives. How much change can
documentary films really inspire? I say it can change the world!

Being the text of
lecture delivered by filmmaker Femi Odugbemi at the Centre for African
and African-American Research, Duke University. United States on
February 21.