Series Site
November 11–12
Nolly Babes, Alfreda’s Cinema, and Anthology Film Archives come together for the first time to present the NOLLY BABES film festival, a celebration of femme fatales in 1990s Nollywood Cinema. The four films featured here are flamboyant, divisive, sensuous, and sharp-tongued portraits of strong female leads in Nigerian Cinema. The figure of the “femme fatale” is not just limited to the genre of film noir: the antics of diabolical women have been a mainstay in the stories of Nollywood ever since it swept the global film industry as one of the fastest-growing cinematic markets in the world. Nigerian filmmakers draw from popular Black culture, superstition, and life experiences to create melodramatic low-budget products as tantalizing as any tabloid or tele-novella designed for instant gratification. Inspired by the popular and influential Instagram project, Nolly Babes, the definitive digital archive devoted to the Nollywood femme fatale, this pioneering film series will finally give New Yorkers an opportunity to experience a dimension of African cinema – one that prioritizes feminine power – that’s rarely showcased within the repertory film world.
The term “Nollywood” was coined to acknowledge the vitality, creativity, and inspiration of Nigerian filmmakers, who have created a filmmaking tradition in parallel to Bollywood and Hollywood. Nollywood has established itself as a force in the global film industry that refuses to go unnoticed. These films lean on genre-specific storylines with a format that screams rapid execution. The inventive, resourceful technique of Nigerians equipped with consumer-grade equipment resulted in a wildly lucrative profit margin, with untrained enthusiasts making fortunes for themselves by capturing the imagination of the public. The four films we’re showcasing here are cherished by the culture that inspired them: MAGIC MONEY, $1 (ONE DOLLAR), BLOOD SISTER, and RUNS.
Nolly Babes, founded by Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu, began highlighting wayward women in Nigerian films in 2017, creating an archive that expressed the fire inside of Nigerian women in cinema, and asserting these women’s agency. With a vocal following, Nolly Babes celebrates its subjects with striking screen grabs, paired with transcriptions of excerpted dialogue, to evoke the dark feminine in all of us.