Hollywood laughed at the idea - how could a movie made with a few thousand dollars and a digital camera make any real money?  The Nollywood film industry is having the last laugh - a $250 million laugh.  The Nigerian film industry (Nollywood) has quickly become the third largest film industry in the world behind Hollywood and Bollywood.

Films out of Nollywood aren’t made for the big screen in the way Hollywood and Bollywood movies are.  They instead go straight to DVD.  Filmmakers use a mix of digital technology, shooting their movies entirely on digital video.  They then edit them on home computers and deliver them to the consumer via DVD.

On average 2400 films are churned out each year and they are sold for very little money ($10 or less).  Caminito Rose sells 400 movies on an average Saturday in his North Miami store.  Directors and actors aren’t making the million dollar paychecks like their Hollywood counterparts and when you add in piracy, consumers don’t have to pay anything for the movies.  What then, is the appeal?

For one, movies are in English.  Extra money for translation on the film makers part and extra effort on reading on the viewers part does not have to be spent to enjoy the movie.  Story lines usually have morals to them.  The message tends to usually be nothing good comes to you when you do evil.  Story lines center on infidelity, folklore and spirituality, and the importance of family.  

It used to be that Africans in Africa and all over the world were the only ones watching movies out of Nollywood.  Things have changed in recent years.  African-Americans, Haitians, Jamaicans, you name it, and chances are they are watching.  And Nollywood is not only popular in the United States and the United Kingdom.  Sunday Omobude is a Nigerian who has set up a shop to sell Nollywood movies in Amsterdam.  His shop is called the one-stop-shop for Nigerian movies in Europe. Every week Sunday receives 10,000 copies of different titles that he distributes all over Europe.

The appeal to African-Americans is that they are finally seeing Africans in a positive light and not the poverty and despair images they have grown accustomed to on the evening news.  Through Nollywood they see close knit happy families, people falling in love, and Africans living in houses and driving cars.  Caribbeans on the other hand are reminded of home when they see Nollywood movies.

Hollywood movies featuring all black casts are few and far between.  Nollywood movies fill the void for many people.  Especially when you consider that die hard fans can watch five to ten new movies a week if they wanted to.  Nollywood movies are slowly bridging the gap between culture. 

Don’t be surprised the next time you’re deep in a water cooler conversation about Beyonce and her latest musical performance with your co-workers if the other Beyonce (Nadia Bukari) is mentioned and your co-workers who look nothing like you tell you all about the plot and storyline of Beyonce The President’s Daughter.