The unique design influence of Nollywood movie poster nostalgia

The View From... is a column on It’s Nice That written by a team of international correspondents in major creative cities around the world. Every two weeks we report on the design scene in these cities, exploring the topics that are making an impact on the local creative community there. This week, Ugonna-Ora Owoh is reporting from Lagos.

A little while between the 90s and the aughts, the Nigerian film industry (or what is now known as Nollywood) was quietly burgeoning. Despite huge budget shortages and a non-existent cinema culture, the little provided were street kiosks where people paid to watch films at a low rate. In essence, it was a CD/cassette era powered by film rental culture. Yet it was also the era where several blockbusters were made; classics like Living in Bondage, Osuofia in London, Egg of Life – some of which have slowly integrated into internet culture, fueling the most comical memes.

These prosperous moments for Nigerian cinema also birthed the most chaotic marketing concepts: highly dramatic trailers and brilliantly garish poster designs, bringing all the action and emotion of the films together in the most impactful and exaggerated way possible. The poster for The Lions portrayed an actor in a lion’s body; the poster for Edo, the Pretty Goddess closely collaged all its very distinctive characters. It was anything but minimalistic.

With time, these overly dramatised poster designs were lost to digitisation, and the urge to create minimalist film posters slowly came to a rise, entirely shaping the film industry into a new path. While the fade of old Nollywood film posters might have taken a halt, the nostalgia doesn’t seem to be equally fading anytime soon; the poster designs had rather made a comeback in recent times; thanks to Nollybabes.

Nollybabes is an archival space developed by Ebele and Tochi; two sisters who were heavily inspired by the creative and aesthetic glamour of these old Nollywood films. “We started Nollybabes as a passion project with the intention of showcasing the beauty of Black women,” Ebele tells It’s Nice That. Beside this, they also wanted to resurface nostalgic moments, and so launched an Instagram account bringing together thousands of people who wanted to rewatch these scenes, one post at a time. Now, Nollybabes has nearly 70,000 followers and has grown beyond just an Instagram account posting old nostalgia. “Our work under the Nollybabes banner has been culturally crafted,” Ebele says. “We have evolved into art curation, archiving, party planning, film screenings, creative direction and forays into artistry and immersive art experiences.”

What Nollybabes has done is make an impact on subculture. It has played a huge role in popularising Nigerian meme culture, especially the Aki & Pawpaw memes depicting faces of veteran actors Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, which has become a viral sensation. On certain posts, you will find the posters of old Nollywood films, usually starring the finest of actors: Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Genevieve Nnaji, Rita Dominic, Stephanie Okereke Linus and a host of others. But the most exciting parts of these posters aren’t embedded in the actions seen, it’s in what the actors are wearing. Think big waist belt, miniskirt and crop tops, thin eyebrows and partially worn out wigs – but these were the typical description of baddies in the aughts. These posters and other scenes posted on Nollybabes’ account was no doubt instrumental in fanning the flames to the popular Y2K fashion and beauty trends. It remains a core aesthetic in Nigerian fashion culture, and has lived its days on TikTok fashion trends: lip syncs to movie scenes, like the Can I join you for a party trend that became a global sensation, and badgirl glamour looks. It also resurrected some music made in the early aughts, like Desperate chicks, which also went viral on TikTok.

While the creators of Nollybabes don’t like to take credit for these impacts, they are very proud of the work they do and how people are reactive to them. “We love to see that Nollybabes has become a creative reference point for people in Nigeria as well as in a diaspora,” Ebele says. “I'd say that old Nollywood aesthetics and sensibilities are at the root of not only the look, but also the sound of current culture coming out of Nigeria, and we are proud to have pioneered the resurgence of this wave. I like that through our work we have created a way for Nigerians to reference ourselves as a source of inspiration in a way that is as distinctively Nigerian as Nollywood.”

Meanwhile, Cannes-nominated film poster designer Iyebiye Adeitan has been in the film industry for almost a decade and produced nearly 200 film posters. Amongst his prominent works are Áfàméfùnà, An Nwa-Boi Story, and Ilé Owó, combining mediums including photography, graphics, and painting. He approaches his artistry from a very minimalist angle, referencing his creative inspiration from US-based designer Akiko Stehrenberger and Germany’s Eileen Steinbach. Iyebiye believes that Nigerian film posters could have a minimalist direction and he proves so in his projects. Despite the altogether different aesthetic to the aforementioned Nollywood posters, his work is similarly moved by mood and action – it’s what directs his creative process, he says. “I’m always looking to the direction a film is taking me to, I do not always make my own decisions, I let the film make it for me, in choosing colours and warmth,” Iyebiye tells It's Nice That.

As a story-driven designer, Iyebiye believes that digitisation has changed the face of film poster designs in Nigeria. “It changed because social media has given us access to the ways other countries create their film posters. The internet has allowed people to grow skills, understand how to use softwares and high gadgets. It used to be very expensive to travel abroad to learn filmmaking, but now we have all this access,” he says.

In 2021, he had an exhibition titled A Big Swerve from Ebinpejo Lane. The exhibition, which speaks about his journey in the film industry, was carefully directed to create a nostalgic moment towards old Nollywood. What Iyebiye did was to recreate the posters of prominent classics like Diamond Ring, Egg of Life, and Abela Pupa, and imagine them in a modern light. “I wanted to start a conversation making people understand where we were coming from to where we are now; it was very important because we need to document this growth,” he adds.

While the digital era is responsible for this tremendous change, it’s also great to see that every film poster always has a unique style and that depends heavily on the creative artistry of each poster designer. Most still follow that same 2000s-esque poster design, but they keep bringing a more modern approach to it, through art direction, photography, type and much more. What matters most is there is a bold difference to this visual narrative that is distinctly Nigerian.

Closer Look

Ugonna-Ora shares other cinematic tips from his hometown, including great places to see film, and a particularly standout film to add to your watchlist.

• Movie in the Park Experience is regarded as the largest outdoor movie experience in Nigeria.

• XVI S16 Film Festival: a festival celebrating independent filmmakers and unique film in contemporary times. They hold it towards the end of the year annually and have brought thousands of creatives across the continent.

• The Nomad Theatre is a cinema founded by Bubeemodi that screens the works of independent African and diasporan filmmakers.

• Country Love: a queer film by the filmmaker Wapah Ezeigwe that tells the story of a femme man who returns home after 15 years to realise home is still toxic to him after abuses from his family.