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Ugochukwu, Francoise
(2013).
URL: http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=c...
Abstract
Long before History Studies became one of Nigeria’s key research fields, details of local history had steadily been passed on through village elders. Since 1996, The Battle of Musanga and Love in Vendetta, a growing number of films have been showcasing Nigerian history through scenarios inspired by memories of real events gathered from community elders or archived reports, which can safely be considered as testimonies on the past. In doing this, those films opened a new channel for the passing of information concerning regional and national history, giving a new lease of life to events from the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial eras by commenting them for wider audiences. To fulfil this mission, film directors modelled folktale structure and style, with the main characters taking on the storytellers’ mantle and the film script reduced to a rough sketch, leaving actors more or less free to improvise. This new channel of communication has equally adopted the didactic approach of folktales, thus facilitating the informal teaching of the country’s cultures, informed by popular readings of them. This influence of orality on Nigerian video films, which has not yet been studied, will be examined here in a number of films including nine directly inspired by past and contemporary Nigerian history.