These recovered photographs belong with the novel. They are from an earlier chapter around Nigerian film and entertainment — the world the story grew from.
September 24, 20264 min readNollywood · The Nollywood Star · Photographs · Novel
Long before Afruniverse, I had already spent time around the Nigerian film and entertainment industry.
These photographs are from that earlier chapter of my journey — on locations, around productions, meeting practitioners, observing the people behind the camera and experiencing some of the realities of an industry that was still finding its structure.
Those experiences stayed with me.
They helped shape my understanding of the ambition, talent, struggles, relationships and sometimes difficult realities behind Nollywood.
Years later, some of those observations found their way into my writing.
I did not write it as an outsider looking at Nollywood from afar. The story grew partly from a world I had encountered personally.
And there is something particularly satisfying about seeing the book now becoming discoverable through Google while I am simultaneously recovering and preserving photographs from that period.
The photographs have become historical records
Some were faded. Some had remained untouched for more than two decades. I am now cleaning and digitising them as part of the Afruniverse Archive, alongside documents, publications and, eventually, old video recordings from MiniDV, Hi8, Digital8 and Betacam.
There is another connection that makes this moment meaningful.
Afruniverse has now opened its marketplace more deliberately to Film, Television & Production professionals — directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, editors, sound professionals, costume and makeup practitioners, production personnel and the many people whose work makes the screen possible.
So, in an unexpected way, several chapters of my life are beginning to meet:
The industry I experienced.
The stories I wrote.
The records I preserved.
And the platform I am building.
The Nollywood Star is therefore more than another title in the Afruniverse Creative Store.
For me, it is part of a much longer story.
THE NOLLYWOOD STAR
A novel by Kingsley Obi Lekan
Available on Afruniverse.
