REPORTER: Aaron Lewis
Film-making in Lagos is a fast and furious affair.
MOSES EWAN, DIRECTOR: We have to work real, real fast. We work on a very, very tight budget. The executive producer puts down money for us to do this film project. The money will only permit us to do this project for say 10 days.
Moses Ewan is one of Nollywood's most popular directors, and today he's on location for his latest film, 'Nollywood Hustler'. Moses has thrived in an industry where entire feature films are often written, filmed, and on the screen - and all in less than a month.
MOSES EWAN: Once you hit location, you have to do a 'fire brigade' approach to everything. So that's why most times you see us, we're like firefighters, always in a rush, that's how we do it here.
Nollywood film-makers have become famous around the world for this guerilla approach. In fact, 'Nollywood Hustler' is a send-up of the Nigerian industry. Like most cameramen here, Austin often works without electricity or proper equipment and on budgets that wouldn't pay for a Hollywood lunch, but the one thing Austin doesn't lack is passion.
AUSTIN, CAMERAMAN: We in Nigeria, we have strength. We have the energy to do - to make it happen. And we are determined that yes, we want to achieve this. And so we achieve it.
REPORTER: Even if you have to work 24 hours a day?
AUSTIN: I'm telling you! 24 hours we work, even if we work overnight for three days non-stop, we do it.
Today, Austin is shooting a scene that takes place inside a moving car and instead of using special effects or modified trucks, he has to do it the old-fashioned way.
AUSTIN: I have passion for what I do. I love it. So whenever I'm with it, I play with it, I'm excited when I see a camera.
Nollywood is now the second-largest film production centre in the world turning out more than 2,000 films a year and it has developed its own distinctive style - one of its hallmarks is expressive acting. It's a style that looks unrealistic to Western audiences. But director Moses Ewan says that directing African stories demands a different approach.
MOSES EWAN: I will not make my actors act like Westerners. Africans are dramatic in the way they react to things, in the way they talk about things, than the Westerners. So that has to affect the kind of movies that we make.
RAMSEY NOAH, ACTOR, SOUNDTRACK: I am not going to release the tape to you. Second, I am going to so lock you up. If I lay my hands them, oh Lord
One of 'Nollywood Hustler's stars is Ramsey Noah. He's one of Nigeria's most famous faces, and a firm believer in Nollywood's value as an African voice.
RAMSEY NOAH: I am so, so proud. I love the fact that I can project our image, our way of life, and our culture to the people out there. And those that already know, they want to see it again because some of the Africans we have in the diaspora, they left Africa a long time ago to start a new life but they want to be identified - they want to know what's going on back home.
As soon as each film is finished, it hits markets like this one across Nigeria, and all over Africa. The kinds of films you'll find here is constantly changing as Nigerian cinema evolves.
EMMANNUEL: Nigerian viewers are now advanced. They want to see better quality movies, more advanced story lines, better African story lines better told, better shot, better directed, and all that.
And there's one place where many of those new ideas are coming from. This unassuming corner of Lagos is actually a creative crucible - and the absolute centre of Nigeria's staggeringly productive film industry. Nestled under Winnie's Hotel, it's a collection of cafes and street stalls where just about everyone you meet is an actor, a director, a photographer or a screenwriter.
MAN: I'm keen. I'm determined to make sure my next movie is not in English but in a local language.
For Nigeria, Winnie's is a bit like the famed Left Bank in Paris, or New York's Greenwich Village.
MAN: There are certain things you want to say that have no equivalent in English.
The result of these long debates has been a fearless approach to some of Africa's toughest issues.
STELLA DEMASOS, ACTOR : Nollywood, I will confidently tell you, has brought a lot of changes - positive changes, at that.
Stella Demasos is a leading actress and producer. She was thrust into the spotlight while making the film 'Widows', a story about the harassment and ostracisation facing young widows in West Africa.
STELLA DEMASOS: SOUNDTRACK: Excuse me doctor, that money there is my husband's so you had better start talking!
MAN: It's alright, Doctor, you can talk.
DOCTOR: I am so sorry, we did our best to save him.
STELLA: You did what? You did what? You did what! You did what!
STELLA DEMASOS: I did the film in August 2004 - but I did it 80%. We didn't finish shooting because we had issues on location. Then a few months after in December, my husband died. And I went through all kinds of things that were so shocking - there were too many things that happened in the movie that were so real to me at that point - and I thought, oh my goodness, is this really what a lot of women go through?
After her husband's death Stella nevertheless pushed through to finish the film, and it had an enormous impact. Stella met other widows like Jemia and has become a fierce advocate for widow's rights.
STELLA DEMASOS: I met over 100 women in different places who started calling me, who told me that I have become a role model for them. They were touched by the fact that I was a representative of all of them.
SOUNDTRACK: What did you just say? Go to hell!
Many of Nollywood's best film-makers have a cause, this film, 'Emotional Crack' was produced by Emem Isong.
EMEM ISONG, PRODUCER: It dealt with wife battery - and that was very close to my heart, because I feel that so much abuse of women is really going on in Africa, but we are quiet about it. And as a female film-maker, these are some of the issues I want to bring out and tell women we don't have to keep quiet about it, we have to fight it.
Award-winning film-maker Tunde Kelani says Nollywood has been so successful because these heartfelt home-grown stories connect to people in a way that American blockbusters can't.
TUNDE KELANI, FILM MAKER: Nollywood is nothing more again than therapy - therapy to the Africans who have been deprived of so many things, who have disappointed by their various governments, who could only hope. So rather than everyone going mad and crazy, I think they find solace in a cushion, a support, in Nollywood films.
Kelani's Nollywood career spans three decades. As one of the industry's pioneers, he's proud of the challenges that it has overcome.
TUNDE KELANI: You know how difficult it is to make a film without electricity? And that's not enough to stop Nigerians. You know how difficult it is to make films when the roads are bad? But that is not enough to stop the producers of Nollywood. They have to make everything - make your own electricity, make your own water. If there is shortage of petrol, you have to find it. But nothing has been able to stop them so far.
Tonight is a red-carpet event designed to create a buzz around the latest film by Emem Isong and Moses Ewan and the glitterati of Nigerian cinema are here.
EMEM ISONG: We keep improving by the day - technology is better, and, of course, there is more money. At the time we started, there was hardly any money in the industry.
Nollywood fare has now become one of Nigeria's top exports. And perhaps more importantly, the industry is providing a much-needed boost to Nigerian pride.
MOSES EWAN: People enjoy it all over the world, Nollywood is everywhere. The actors are getting massive publicity, fame everywhere, in every part of the world. I think it's the kind of stories that we do - natural African stories.
Reporter/Camera
AARON LEWIS
Producers
AARON THOMAS
VICTORIA STROBL
Fixer
VICTOR OKHAI
Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN