Cinematic Independence

Download or read book Cinematic Independence written by Noah Tsika and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cinematic Independence traces the emergence, demise, and rebirth of big-screen film exhibition in Nigeria. Film companies flocked to Nigeria in the years following independence, beginning a long history of interventions by Hollywood and corporate America. The 1980s and 90s saw a shuttering of cinemas, which were almost entirely replaced by television and direct-to-video movies. After 1999, the exhibition sector was again revitalized with the construction of multiplexes. Cinematic Independence is about the periods that straddle this disappearing act: the decades bracketing independence in 1960, and the years after 1999. At stake in both instances is the postcolony's role in global debates about the future of the movie theater. That it was eventually resurrected in the flashy form of the multiplex is not simply an achievement of commercial real estate but also a testament to cinema's persistence--its capacity to stave off annihilation or, in this case, come back from the dead"--