Many were surprised when Netflix acquired the rights to Genevieve Nnaji’s film, “Lion Heart”. This made many African film makers to reach for the sky. The Nigerian movie industry, otherwise known as Nollywood, has been booming for the past decades but lots of the film makers always suffered huge financial losses to piracy, which sunk a huge part of their revenue. This discouraged a lot of movie makers from investing generously in film projects. The coming of Netflix is a relief to them. Netflix relieves these film makers of very high quality content to grow its subscriber base. They too, on the other hand, rely on the streaming giant to solve their piracy problem.
The subscribers who are interested in African stories represent a growing and profitable niche. This has inspired a renewed drive to attract more African subscribers on Netflix. Netflix is investing in Africa’s movie industry to reap from the huge harvest as the industry blossoms. Nollywood is rated the third largest in the world, after Hollywood and Bollywood, so, showcasing African movies on Netflix is another way of projecting African talent to the rest of the world. There is so much to be seen and appreciated across the globe. Netflix also believes that great stories comes from anywhere and will be loved everywhere.
According to Dorothy Ghettuba, Head of African Originals at the company, “We want to tell amazing stories tailored to different languages, different tastes and different moods. The intention is to showcase African talent not only to the African audience but to the rest of the world.”
Today, Netflix is not only showcasing African and English movies, movies in local languages are also being shown, thanks to Yoruba movies like ‘Ayinla’ ‘King of Thieves’, ‘Anikulapo’ and the recently released “Elesin Oba”. This move helps us tell our stories in our own way.
Before now, many concluded Yoruba movies could not make it to Netflix, due to the use of Yoruba language. These movies didn’t only make it to the top-rated movies of the year but highest-grossing movies of the year. Out of these four movies, three have been listed for nomination for the Oscars next year. ‘Anikulapo’ by Kunle Afolayan, ‘Agesinkole’ (King of Thieves) by Femi Adebayo and ‘Elesin Oba’. (The King’s Horseman by the late Biyi Bandele.
Anikulapo has risen to be Netflix’s number one film globally with raving reviews, less than five weeks after its premiere in September. It stars Sola Sobowale, Kunle Remi, Bimbo Ademoye and others. It was shot in Oyo State and Kunle has described the work as a ‘Game of Thrones’ recreated in Nigeria but with a better representation of Yoruba Culture.
The movie narrates the story of Saro who arrives in Oyo as a stranger and a traditional textile weaver who uses the aso-ofi loom and technique. Saro has an illicit romance with Queen Arolake, who has a bad marriage because she is not interested in the King, but it is her duty to lay with him. She is also young and un-interested in the older King’s constant attention. His favouritism brings up rivalry with the older queens, who mistreat her. She and Saro fall in love.
As they make plans to elope, word of their affair gets to the King who sentences Saro to death. Based on the Mythical Akala bird which wakes him from death, Saro, through the astute actions of Arolake, gains the power to resurrect the dead and earns the name, Anikulapo (one that holds death in his purse). On its part, King of Thieves is a 2022 Nigerian thriller. It stars Odunlade Adekola, Femi Adebayo, Toyin Abraham amongst others.
The movie is set in the pre-modern Yoruba era (around the 17th and 18th centuries) and narrates the story of Agesinkole, a powerful bandit warrior who will stop at nothing to terrorise and lay waste to the prosperous Kingdom of Ajeromi.
During his reign of terror, the Kingdom, under the rulership of King Adegbite, the great grandson of Tadenikaro, explores all available strategies and means to defeat Agesinkole by deploying spiritual and physical attacks through priests, witches, wizards and warriors, but with each attempt, he becomes more deadly. It was such a reign of absolute terror that no one was spared and the King eventually brought the head hunter, Oguntade to confront the invinsible Agesinkole and his ruthless soldiers.
On its part, Elesin Oba (the Kings Horseman, is based on Nigeria’s most famous play, ‘Death and the King’s Horseman written in 1975 by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wole Soyinka. Directed by the late Biyi Bandele and produced by Mo Abudu, the movie is generating global attention with a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film stars Odunlade Adekola, Shaffy Bello, Deyemi Okanlawon and others. The movie is inspired by true life events in the Oyo Empire in the 1940s. The King’s Chief Horseman succumbs to the lure of beauty and sexual desire in the very evening he is set to die in order to fulfil his life-long debt of ritual suicide to accompany the dead Alaafin to the realm of the ancestors. He derails from a very important generational and spiritual transaction.
This sets in motion a series of catastrophic consequences. In a spell-binding film of emotions, humour and tragic role reversals, that puts ancient belief and customs on trial, in an ever increasingly post modern and western world. These movies are very rich in Yoruba culture and tradition, and many are tired of the usual romance movies. They want culture and tradition, oriented movies, with lots of moral lessons.
Send Us News, Gist, more... to citypeopleng@gmail.com | Twitter: @CitypeopleMagz
