Bio:

Onookome Okome studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is currently full professor of African literature and cinema at the Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. With Jonathan Haynes, he co-authored Cinema and Social Change in Nigeria (Nigerian Film Corporation, Jos, 1997). His edited volumes include, Before I am Hanged: Ken Saro-Wiwa, Literature, Politics and Dissent (World Press, New Jersey, 2000); Ogun’s Children: The Literature and Politics Since the Nobel (Africa World Press, New Jersey, 2004), Writing the Homeland: The Poetry and Politics of Tanure Ojaide (Bayreuth African Studies Press, 2002), Global Nollywood: An African Video Film Industry (co-editor, Indiana University Press, 2013), and Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of Everyday Life (co-editor, Routledge, New York, 2014). A pioneer teacher and scholar of Nollywood Studies, he has published extensively on the Nollywood phenomenon in West Africa, including the co-authored essay, “Evolving Popular Media: Nigerian Video Film,” (Research in African Literatures, 29/3, 1998), the first scholarly work on the phenomenon. His most recent essays include “Africa in Nollywood, Nollywood in Africa,” Global Africa into the 21st Century (University of California Press, 2017) and “Islam et cinema en Afrique de I’Ouest” Tresor en Afrique de Tombouctu a Zanziaba (Silvana Editoriale, Italy, 2017). In 2025, he co-edited the special issue of the Journal of African Cultural Studies (Volume 37, 3, 2025) on the controversial film, Taiwo Sango, by the German journalist and cultural enthusiast Klaus Stepan. Widely traveled, Okome has given papers and invited talks in Switzerland, Brazil, Barbados, Italy, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Ghana, and the United States. He is a Humboldt Awardee and Scholar and the Fellow of the Salzburg Seminar, Salzburg, Austria.

Abstract:

In a little over thirty years of operation, Nollywood has emerged as Africa’s popular cinema to contend with. Initially described as a mere flash in the pan and derided by the intellectual class in its homeland, Nigeria, Nollywood remains strong, patronized by Nigerians looking to see their faces on the screen. Taking advantage of the technology of the portable and easily transportable video cassette, Nollywood filmmakers harvested recognizable everyday Nigeria stories, creating urban fabula for Nigerians. In no time, a national cinema emerged and in short order, it became a continental affair. Netflix Nollywood is the global expression of this peripheral cinema practice, which emerged with the release of the evergreen film, Living in Bondage (1992). Beyond the popular reception at home and across the continent of Africa, this film industry has redefined what it means to make films in Africa. It has also redefined both the mode of cinematic address as well as cinema spectatorship in Africa. What were the local conditions that gave rise to Nollywood? What accounts for the transformation of its peripheral status as a cinema practice into a global cinema. This brief presentation deals with these and other questions.