The film festival will showcase over 30 entries, including feature films, animations, and short films.
NollywoodWeek Film Festival, the first and only Nigerian film festival organised in Paris has taken its eighth edition online. This year’s line-up will be available to a global online audience from May 6-9, 2021. The selection of films has also expanded beyond Nigeria to include high quality, thought-provoking, and entertaining productions.
The organisers of the film festival have shared that this year’s edition will showcase films that hint at the emergence of a new style within the Nigerian film industry. “Arthouse and experimental films are finding a place in a landscape that has been dominated by a mainly commercial agenda in the past,” said festival director Nadira Shakur.
The festival will feature a range of films by a young group of Nigerians who are breaking the old codes and setting the new trends in the types of stories they tell and the cinematographic style they use.
Nadira Abdus-Shakur added: “This new approach to making movies is showing an incredible amount of maturity, drawing inspiration from styles across the globe, yet staying true to a strong Nigerian identity. Filmmakers are tackling more diverse themes such as mental health which we see in the film For Maria or in About a Boy which will be one of the world-premieres at the festival this year. The opening film All Na Vibes which tackles the issue of alienated youth in Nigeria’s urban centres is another example of this new wave of filmmakers who are featuring new voices and innovative story-telling.”
Serge Noukoué, Co-founder of the film festival, commented: “Nollywood is now an inspiration for so many other countries not just in Africa but around the globe and as such, it is only natural that the festival expands in order to create this dialogue between the Nigerian film industry and the many other budding industries around the world that are emulating Nollywood’s success.”
Despite being online, the festival will still include Q&A sessions after each film. There will also be panel discussions on screenwriting, funding the African animation sector and distribution of African content. The film festival will showcase over 30 entries, including feature films, animations, and short films.