Nollywood Still Missing at the Cannes Film Festival
30 years since the production of the blockbuster home video, "Living in Bondage" in 1992 and 20 years after the New York Times coined the word #Nollywood in 2002 for the phenomenal guerilla film industry in Nigeria with over 2000 movies produced annually and rated as the second largest film industry in the world after the #Bollywood of India and ahead of #Hollywood of America, no Nollywood movie has ever been chosen for the Official Selections of the Cannes Film Festival when filmmakers from other African countries have competed with the best for the highly coveted Palme d'Or and have won it a couple of times.
Morocco, Senegal, Ghana and Mali are among the countries with films in the Official Selection of the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival beginning on Tuesday, 17 May and ending on Saturday, 28 May.
https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/infos-communiques/communique/articles/the-films-of-the-official-selection-2022.
While, the ambitious filmmakers in the world are going to be in competition for the highly coveted Palme d'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Nigerian filmmakers are hyping themselves on Instagram and competing for bragging rights in Nollywood.
Nollywood filmmakers are lagging behind in the biggest competitions in the global film industry. That is why none of them has qualified for the Official Selections of the Cannes Film Festival and nominations for the Academy Awards.
India will be the official ‘Country of Honour’ at the upcoming Marche’s Du Film which will be organized alongside the Cannes Film Festival 2022 in France. And this is the first time that such honour has been bestowed on any country.
Nollywood, where art thou?
The Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series,
the first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.
