By Abraham Achirga and Alexis Akwagyiram
ABUJA/LAGOS, May 27 (Reuters) - Nigeria's film industry is
creeping back to work after lockdown, and one of the first
productions to resume is a new television series about a highly
infectious disease that has ravaged the world.
Cameras stopped rolling weeks ago due to the coronavirus
pandemic, which has killed more than 300,000 people worldwide,
including 200 in the West African country.
Better known as Nollywood, the multibillion dollar industry
churns out movies and TV shows at a rate second only to India's
Bollywood and employs one million people. But productions have
had to be stripped right back.
Filming for the TV series Meadows, shot in the capital
Abuja, restarted in mid-May after being halted for two months.
Its production team, excluding actors, has been cut back to
around seven people - around a quarter of the people in a
regular Nollywood crew.
"I have to do lots of things myself," said director Samuel
Idiagbonya, who is now also in charge lighting.
The crew wear face masks, actors keep their distance from
one another as they deliver their lines and undergo regular
temperature checks.
The global pandemic has left Nollywood in deep trouble,
according to industry executives and financial analysts.
Cinema closures across Nigeria due to the lockdown have been
"catastrophic" for the industry, which gets half of its revenue
from ticket sales, according to Bismarck Rewane, who heads the
Lagos-based consultancy Financial Derivatives.
Cinemas in Nigeria are still shut indefinitely and the
consultancy predicts that up to 250,000 people employed in
Nollywood, from designers to box office attendants, could lose
their jobs.
Moses Babatope, managing director of Film One Entertainment,
believes that the pandemic has caused Nollywood losses of around
3 billion naira ($8.33 million) since mid-February.
An increase in home viewing has boosted sales to streaming
platforms including Netflix, but meanwhile revenue from other
clients such as airlines has dried up, said Babatope, who is
secretary of a film industry body.
The shuttering of the cinema chain he co-founded and which
accounts for 60% of his distribution revenue, has forced him to
furlough around two thirds of his staff.
"If this goes on much longer, a lot of cinema businesses
will struggle to come back, including ours," said Babatope.
Fred Amata, president of the Directors Guild of Nigeria,
said social distancing would make most scripts unworkable.
Nollywood's films are famed for tales of romance and
witchcraft and often depict lavish social gatherings that are
the bedrock of Nigerian life.
The scene evolved from visual pulp fiction and poor
production in the 1990s to a thriving industry that has grabbed
the attention of global entertainment brands. "It all seems so bleak," Amata said.
But on a mild Wednesday evening in May, a crowded car park
in the capital Abuja offered a potential ray of hope as tens of
cars lined up facing a big screen - one of around a dozen
drive-in cinemas which have popped up around the country.
Charles Okpaleke, the producer behind the Abuja site, said
he wanted to respect both cinema and social distancing in a way
that was financially viable.
"In every setback there's an opportunity," he said.
($1 = 360.0000 naira)