Nollywood is a fast-paced industry. As its name suggests, the Nigerian video industry is the third largest worldwide; according to statistics, between 500 and 1,200 are released each year but in reality, many more are produced. The aesthetics of these video films are fast in many senses of the word. Made in as little as five days’ shooting, on shoestring budgets and with amateur equipment, videos are often in the hands of marketers within days of the final cut. These videos are then ready to be purchased and seen by millions at home on DVD players.

Pieter Hugo’s series Nollywood, in contrast, acts like a freezeframe on the industry. Shot in muted colours, the series pays homage to this mushrooming cultural phenomenon. Hugo has worked in collaboration with a makeup artist and a team of forty actors to recreate a series of tableaux representing a spread of popular Nigerian video imagery.

Through the series Hugo brings Nollywood’s imagery into the realm of the cinematic, instilling a visual quality and stillness that is absent from the videos themselves. Representing symbolic characters, yet working within the reality of the Nigerian context, the images also raise awareness of the constructions and crudeness of the industry.

Nigerian video is distributed directly to consumers. They are produced by the community, be it in Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa or English. They are colourful and drama-packed, even sometimes musical. They reflect the country’s realities by including scenes of conflict, be it domestic, armed or about faith, and often deal with issues of bribery and power. Three women, Chommy Choko Eli, Florence Owanta, and Kelechi Anwuacha, all wielding AK-47s, carefully made-up and with provocative hairdos, seem to be on a mission to avenge dishonour. As Hugo has observed, religion, the supernatural, family, love, and community issues are all examined under the lens.

Hugo represents the reality of the industry, using real actors, locations and sets in Enugu, one of Nigeria’s most popular video destinations; the sets are genuinely makeshift. Drawing on a rich tradition of street theatre and storytelling, characters in Nigerian videos are often based on archetypes.

These larger-than-life and composite characters are at the forefront of Hugo’s images. Indeed, Hugo has found inspiration for the characters in the series from famous Nollywood roles, but also from street theatre, myths, news stories and popular superstition. For example, in Dike Ngube and Gold Gabriel, the rich fabrics, costumes and the quality of the protagonists’ demeanor and facial expressions make them appear wholly detached from reality, like painted icons.

At the same time, the series sits between documentation and fiction. Hugo stays true to his aesthetic throughout — the rich colours of the costumes and theatrical makeup are carefully balanced with a muted background. This further accentuates the contrast between the characters and the setting. Not only is the metaphorical drama carried out in the choice of characters, but also in the quality of the image. The figures in Malachy Udegbunam and Children stand in a stiff pose reminiscent of a Dirk Bouts Christ, but they are actually set in front of a rough concrete wall, and so firmly rooted in Enugu in 2008.

As equipment costs decrease year on year, and the exposure of Nigerian videos to non-domestic audiences increases, the quality of the imagery will shift. Hugo has represented the success story of a community building its own narratives through the use of the tools available to it. And so the image of Ifanyi Ololo represents the dilemma of this burgeoning industry. Whilst it has come to realize and harness the power of home video images, the demise of the VHS is bringing the industry into a new era. Hugo has captured a moment in time, when popular imagery, by building and pushing its own symbolism, is entering the realm of the cinematic.