The emergence of African movies as a new form of entertainment is quite remarkable. Slowly but surely, the African movies industry has continued to make inroads into the world movie market. A movie content that was initially targeted towards African audience in Africa, which transcended to Africans in the Diaspora and beyond, has slowly woven its way into the hearts of Caribbean audiences, African Americans and a limited number of Caucasian audiences alike. So the questions that behooves asking is why is such content of very low budget, shot with less qualitative equipment in comparison to movies from Hollywood, the Indian movie industry or even Chinese movies which happen to be the more established movie industries still made this stride? Why have these audiences and a growing number for that matter continue to crave for the African movies been produced? The answers to these questions would provide the genesis of the African movie's plot and what could go wrong with the new phenomenon that seems to be creeping into the content.

Hollywood has big studios, can produce great movies with high budget amounts and have the technology to support every production. The Indian movie industry or Bollywood has a huge Indian population with essentially one uniform language both in and outside India and can therefore produce a universal content to serve this market. They have unique attributes with the movies they produce including the song interludes synonymous with each movie which remains an attraction. Chinese movies and most other East Asian productions have the concept of martial arts and the infusion of funds to support those types of productions has allowed the industry to foster.  African Movies was however lacking of all these; the high budget synonymous with Hollywood movies, the uniformity of language with the Indian model, or an identity with martial arts concept with the Chinese model. What African Movies had and continues to have is relatable family, day to day stories.  Relatable stories are stories that depict a true livelihood of Africans, their pain, suffering, the wide rich-poor gap deficit and how the rich trample on the poor, witchcraft, etc. These are the reality of what pertains in Africa, these are the reality of people in Africa live in and what those who had once lived in Africa can associate with, or what the Caribbean community do also associate with because they seem to also have a similar cultural setting. So unlike the other industries, this basic idea and a good portrayal of it in the movies has been what African Movies lovers wanted and enjoyed all this years. But what is changing?

The problems that seem to be creeping into the movie production is a lack of creativity and good scripting which has translated into much lesser artistic depiction of the stories, which in turn is causing apathy and a lack of continued and staunch love for the African Movies. In a quest to make multiple productions in a relatively short amount of time, there is a rush in the scripting and directing of the movies which is making the movies less appealing. And instead of examining this problem from a holistic perspective in any good attempt to help fix the problem, the producers and directors alike have adopted two other concepts that further worsen the problem; infusion of Hollywood movie concepts which is further killing the movie appeal and genuineness, and also the uncensored and explicit depiction of sexuality and adult scenes which has compounded the situation even more.

African Movie enthusiasts usually watch the movies in groups. A family in the United States would want to sit together in the comfort of their homes and watch the movies together; the father, mother, and kids. There hope and aim for the is to get the entertainment satisfaction, to see and relate to the African scenery which also helps the kids build a connection to their ancestral roots, but above all to expose the kids to content that is devoid of all the explicit and violent content they see on a daily basis in Western Television. But when that same content is now been infused into African Movies, the purpose of them watching the movies  is defeated and they are inclined to watch the movie separately without the kids. This is a big disincentive and has begun to in turn drive down African movie patronage.

So the journey for a perpetual African Movie industry is just about beginning. Industries like Hollywood had learnt a lot of lessons over the years, consolidation of fragmented units of movie studios into huge and bigger blocks enabled for control and a streamlining of productions for what it has eventually become today. The African Movie industry can also learn from the Hollywood lessons to. It has an imminent crisis which is dwindling its followers, and the earlier it addresses the core issues outlined, the better it would be for all the stakeholders involved.

Frank Roberts is the managing editor of African Movies News
Article Source