Not All Nollywood Movies Belong In Cinemas – Scarlet Gomez

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Nollywood actress Selena Gomez has said that not all Nigerian movies are meant to be shown in cinemas. She recently opened up about the need for Nigeria to grow its cinema culture, and fans have been reacting.

Noting that YouTube-level films shouldn’t be shown in cinemas, she urged filmmakers to learn to cut their coats according to their budgets.

Scarlet added that while more cinemas would ultimately help Nollywood, it has to be of the right quality.

Her words, “It would be nice to have more films in cinemas because it will help grow the culture.

But, I don’t believe all films should go to the cinema. It depends on the filmmaker.

If your budget can carry a cinema release, that’s fine; if it’s YouTube, so be it.”

Offering advice to aspiring actors, she said, “Believe in yourself, put God first, and work hard.”

WOW.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.