Interrogating film adaptation as another form of Neoslavery in Nollywood studies

Abstract

The rising profile of Nigeria Film today is indeed a product of critical thinking of both filmmakers and film scholars. This is not to lose sight of the huge contributions of literary/theatre practitioners and scholars who by their experiences on literary texts and stage craft have successfully transited from text/stage productions to screen arts. As Nigeria film production evolves, there are compelling needs to adapt some creative works with good narrative essence that speak to the socio-cultural tenets and the unity of Nigeria. This transitory engagement from stage experience into screen experimentation by early practitioners and scholars fit in considerably in Neoslavery discourse. Critically, film adaptation is the process of assessing/transforming an existing literary or theatrical text based on its original content, structure and relevance of a given interest, mostly from western perspective to a new space of need with or without a change in plot structure and title that is inducible. It is within this scope that the conceptual framework of the study is predicated on Gerard Genette’s transtextuality theory. The study hopes to examine and re-evaluate the relation or movement of one text to another and how creative experts in Nigeria film industry are influenced unconsciously to use adaptation as potent tool to perpetuate or impose other interest through textual interpretation and recreation on the others. There is therefore an attempt to focus on Bayo Adebowale’ Virgin and Tunde Kelani’s Narrow Path as one aspect of film adaptations that Nigerian filmmakers have successfully adapted. It is the submission of this paper that cultural rebirth, technological advancement and non-literary or non- narrative sources are the emerging trends that the new generation of filmmakers leverages on in lifting penetrative ideas from page/stage to screen. The study concludes that film adaptation is one resource material that paves the way for the voices of colonialists to be heard through Nollywood filmmakers.