Long overshadowed by south Nigeria’s Nollywood, filmmakers in the north of Africa’s cinema powerhouse are pushing boundaries in search of international eyeballs — all while navigating the Muslim-majority region’s social conservatism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Young creatives — influenced not just by their peers in the wealthier Christian south of the country, but even as far as India — are hoping to expand the audience\u00a0beyond Nigeria’s borders for the north’s frenetic “Kannywood” cinema industry, known for churning out some 200 films a month.<\/p>\n
With some 80 million speakers of the north’s Hausa language spread across west and central Africa — not to mention the vast Nigerian diaspora around the world — Kannywood’s potential market is huge.<\/p>\n
Yet reconciling international expectations with local constraints is no easy task: Islam’s sharia law code runs alongside common law in Kano state, the bustling cultural hub of northern Nigeria, and a government censor board reviews music and film production.<\/p>\n
Kamilu Ibrahim is among the directors hoping to break the mould — in addition to pushing to include “aspects that are not commonly seen in Hausa films”, Ibrahim has also put English and Arabic subtitles in his work in a bid to reach a wider audience.<\/p>\n
Filmmakers still find a way to focus on the same themes that dominate Nollywood: love, vengeance and treason all make good fodder for the at times over-the-top melodrama Nigerian movies are known for.<\/p>\n
But nudity, “sexual scenes” as well as “content that is contrary to customs, traditions, and religion” are all out of bounds, Abba El-Mustapha, an actor and director who also serves as the executive secretary of the Kano State film censorship board, told AFP.<\/p>\n
– Hausa-focused streamers –<\/p>\n
When AFP visited Ibrahim’s set last year, he was filming season two of “Wata Shida”, a series about a woman confronted with the prospect of a forced marriage.<\/p>\n
In order to get out of it, she marries another man, with both of them seeking the convenience of a partnership on paper, rather than real romance — an on-the-nose plotline in a region where women and girls are frequently wedded to their parents’ choice of husband.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We are not used to seeing someone going out in pursuit of a dream without family consent,” Ibrahim said, noting the importance of films to “question certain important social issues”.<\/p>\n
“Wata Shida” actor Adam Garba said he hopes to see the series broadcast on a\u00a0major streaming platform one day — though for now, it’s available on YouTube.<\/p>\n
Most Nigerian films on major streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime are from the country’s richer south, where Hausa is a minority language.<\/p>\n
“They have more budget, more equipment, they have more sponsors, more investors,” Garba told AFP.<\/p>\n
That might be changing.<\/p>\n
Freshly launched Arewaflix is a new streaming initiative from Abdurrahman Muhammad Amart, a Nigerian production company CEO.<\/p>\n
Arewaflix will be a service “not only for Hausa films, but also for films in other languages from northern Nigeria”, including Nupe and Kanuri, Amart said.<\/p>\n
Subtitles are planned in English, French and Arabic.<\/p>\n
It’s not the first such attempt: Northflix, another Hausa-focused effort, shuttered in 2023 amid slow growth.<\/p>\n
Getting people to pay for media is tough in any country. Nigeria — where millions live in poverty, compounded by an economic crisis since 2023 — is no exception.<\/p>\n
“When a film is accessible to a hundred people on a platform with poor security, it can quickly be pirated and circulated everywhere,” said Mustapha, the censor board secretary.<\/p>\n
– Bollywood inspiration –<\/p>\n
The industry is known for its scrappiness, but the key to international growth is better production equipment, said director Umar Abdulmalik.<\/p>\n
With top-notch stories and production, the language barrier won’t be an issue, he predicted, noting how India’s Bollywood has become a media staple in Nigeria, despite many viewers not speaking English or Hindi, “because they are carried away by the characters’ emotions”.<\/p>\n
For now, though, there’s one tradition that Kannywood seems set to stick with: doing more with less.<\/p>\n
On the set of “Wata Shida”, the heat was rising as the call to prayer rang out from nearby mosques.<\/p>\n
After calling cut, director Ibrahim called for another take.<\/p>\n
“That’s good, but we can do better,” he said. “Let’s do it again.”<\/p>\n
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