VIDEOS IN MOTION - fasopo

festival hall. As part of the retrospective, the Berlinale organized a workshop in which Jeta Amata,a young Nigerian director who is also the protagonist of the documentary Nick goes to Nollywood,taught German film students “how to make a film in ten days”. 102 The film that resulted from thisworkshop, whose final title was The Alexa Affair, was screened in “World Premiere” during theretrospective, jointly with a round table on Nollywood’s modes of production with both Nigerianand European filmmakers and professionals.While the retrospective was well received by local audiences, numerous Nigerians did notapprove the way it represented the video industry. As it was reported, for instance, Tunde Kelanideclined the invitation to participate because “he disagreed with the organizers’ view of theNigerian film industry as being exploitative in nature” (Ayorinde 2004a). The journalist SteveAyorinde, one of the people that participated at the event as part of the Nigerian delegation,commented:it is a great thing that a big festival open the doors to you, but where were we? Berlinfestival was happening in Postdamer Platz and we were like 45 minutes away by train...that is, you are not allowed to be in the mainstream cinema, you are going to be on theperiphery and they will call you just to tell you: “come and tell us how you make filmsin five days for less than 10.000 dollars”. We thought this was not a celebration! Andpeople at one point will be tired of you explaining what you do and how you do it…they will want to invite filmmakers and show films… They will wait just for few years,and, after that, they will want to see what you are really doing, and see if you cancompete with the others... (2010).As this comment emphasizes, the position in which most festivals put Nollywood is a peripheralone. No Nollywood film had in fact ever been presented in these festivals’ main competitionsections alongside films from other region of the world. In most cases, the Nigerian video industryhas been presented as part of special programs, along a series of round-tables and documentary filmscreenings to give the audience the elements to interpret the specificities of the Nigerianphenomenon.102 This is the expression used in the retrospective program. All the festival materials that I mention here were kindlymade available by Dorothee Wenner (programmer of the Berlin International Film Festival and director of thedocumentary Nollywood Lady aka Peace Mission).124