Producing Nollywood portal films: Navigating precarity through informal social relations and hope

Abstract

This article examines the production practices that underpin the production of portal films in the Nigerian video film industry (Nollywood). Following the recent surge in the number of streaming portals focusing on the distribution of Nollywood films, a nascent video on demand (VOD) market has been created. This new market has given rise to a crop of filmmakers who now produce straight-to-portal films. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with 30 industry stakeholders comprising producers, directors, writers, and streaming executives. Adopting a critical media industry studies approach, I argue that, in the face of pervasive precarity in the Nollywood VOD market, portal filmmakers adopt informal social relations and ‘hope labour’ in navigating productions and ensuring the market is sustained. The article contributes to extant research on Nollywood's production dynamics and extends existing debates about precarity in cultural industries through a less-studied context like Nollywood.