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 Cameras stopped rolling weeks
ago due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has
killed more than 300,000 people worldwide,
including 200 in the West African country.
Better known as Nollywood, the multibillion
dollar industry churns out movies and TV shows
at a rate second only to India's Bollywood and
employs one million people. But productions have
had to be stripped right back.
Filming for the TV series Meadows, shot in the
capital Abuja, restarted in mid-May after being
halted for two months. Its production team,
excluding actors, has been cut back to around
seven people - around a quarter of the people in
a regular Nollywood crew.
"I have to do lots of things myself," said
director Samuel Idiagbonya, who is now also in
charge lighting.
The crew wear face masks, actors keep their
distance from one another as they deliver their
lines and undergo regular temperature checks.
The global pandemic has left Nollywood in deep
trouble, according to industry executives and
financial analysts.
Cinema closures across Nigeria due to the
lockdown have been "catastrophic" for the
industry, which gets half of its revenue from
ticket sales, according to Bismarck Rewane, who
heads the Lagos-based consultancy Financial
Derivatives.
Cinemas in Nigeria are still shut indefinitely
and the consultancy predicts that up to 250,000
people employed in Nollywood, from designers to
box office attendants, could lose their jobs.
Moses Babatope, managing director of Film One
Entertainment, believes that the pandemic has
caused Nollywood losses of around 3 billion
naira ($8.33 million) since mid-February.
An increase in home viewing has boosted sales to
streaming platforms including Netflix, but
meanwhile revenue from other clients such as
airlines has dried up, said Babatope, who is
secretary of a film industry body.
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 The shuttering of the cinema
chain he co-founded and which accounts for 60%
of his distribution revenue, has forced him to
furlough around two thirds of his staff.
"If this goes on much longer, a lot of cinema
businesses will struggle to come back, including
ours," said Babatope.
Fred Amata, president of the Directors Guild of
Nigeria, said social distancing would make most
scripts unworkable. Nollywood's
films are famed for tales of romance and
witchcraft and often depict lavish social
gatherings that are the bedrock of Nigerian
life.
The scene evolved from visual pulp fiction and
poor production in the 1990s to a thriving
industry that has grabbed the attention of
global entertainment brands.
"It all seems so bleak," Amata said.
But on a mild Wednesday evening in May, a
crowded car park in the capital Abuja offered a
potential ray of hope as tens of cars lined up
facing a big screen - one of around a dozen
drive-in cinemas which have popped up around the
country.
Charles Okpaleke, the producer behind the Abuja
site, said he wanted to respect both cinema and
social distancing in a way that was financially
viable.
 "In every setback there's an opportunity," he
said.
(Reporting by Abraham Achirga in Abuja and
Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Additional reporting
by Nneka Chile in Lagos; Writing by Alexis
Akwagyiram; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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