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1 month ago | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor |Orji Victor Ebubechukwu |Iheoma Uzomba |Otosirieze Obi-Young
There are days when I think that Nollywood film critics are too harsh and more days when I think they are not harsh enough: it reflects an inconsistent industry from which the two biggest streamers, first Prime Video and then Netflix, have pulled out — a business many of whose stakeholders seem to not understand that there is no extent of “branding” or trumpeting of “numbers,” no annual feature in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter stalely announcing “the rise” and “arrival” of “African...
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor |Iheoma Uzomba |Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera |Michael Aromolaran |Otosirieze Obi-Young
Our top stories of 2024 are not so much our most-read pieces as they are the pieces that reflect the range of subjects we covered in the year, and that we therefore recommend, in case you missed reading them. They show our deep work in finding untold stories, contextualizing developments in African literature and Nollywood, and highlighting the shapers of culture and industries.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor
Nsukka. 2013. The university town hummed with quiet energy, cradling thousands of outsize dreams. Nineteen-year-old Arinze Ifeakandu pulsed with a story that came complete: characters, plot, language. All that he’d written led up to this one. He started writing in a frenzy, on a laptop with a faulty battery. His friends called the laptop Television, for the way it turned on only while plugged to power and off when the unpredictable electricity winked out.
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Nov 17, 2024 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor
Nigerian cinema has witnessed quite the year. From sprawling epics, to comedy dramas and biopics, the industry continues to charm audiences with compelling stories. As 2024 comes to an end, moviegoers still have much to look forward to. On the big screen, Funke Akindele returns in Everybody Loves Jenifa, the latest film in her Jenifa franchise.
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Aug 21, 2024 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor |Otosirieze Obi-Young
Shafts of the evening sun once beamed into the Sistine Chapel from its twelve arched windows, sliding off stained glass to pour on the high walls and barrel vault ceiling, where, 500 years ago, the famed frescoes were cast. At first, the grand assemblage of Biblical and Messianic prophecy imagery was not meant to be that numerous.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor
House of Ga’a opens in the mid-17th century as Oyo warriors fell the Nupe army in a swift and brutal defeat. The clash feels sparse but this ambitious start must mean there’s more to come. Femi Branch leads Bolanle Austen Peters’ meaty drama about a tyrannical kingmaker with hard-edged gusto. Plus, it is premised on actual history. The plot crackles with intensity, a medley of action, politics, fraught relationships, and young love.
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Apr 19, 2024 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor |Echezonachukwu Nduka
Funke Oyenuga is determined to blend in. A mixed-race girl in late 1970s Nigeria, she is the stark opposite of her British mother, who is red-headed, exuberant, and always seems to stand out. Despite the disapproval of her parents’ marriage from both sides, theirs is a happy family, living in Lagos, days filled with trips to Tarkwa Bay and the exclusive Ikoyi Club, bicycle racing, and swanky parties with expatriate wives and family friends.
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Dec 13, 2023 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor
In December 2018, anti-government protests over the steep cost of bread in Atbara, a city in northeastern Sudan, ignited a nationwide revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people, agitated by abysmal socio-economic conditions throughout Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir’s 30-year dictatorship, filled cities across the country. Just fall, that’s all! they sang. But none rang louder than the voices of the women. The most repressed victims of Bashir’s regime, they made up over half the demonstrators.
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Sep 18, 2023 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor
Bravo’s The Real Housewives franchise has been a mega hit in the US, garnering fans around the world. Its choice cities have reputations that each instalment seeks to enhance or alter, and its casts have distinct personalities, most of them showing their other lives as businesswomen, mothers, wives, and society It Ladies.
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Aug 20, 2023 | 
opencountrymag.com | Paula Willie-Okafor
Asake and Ezinne, the two young wives of Maduka, have been married into a life of rivalry. They compete for the attention of their husband, and when Ezinne goes into labour, Asake induces hers so that she can give birth on the same day. The two women’s daughters, Yejide and Awele, grow into antagonism of their own, helping their mothers who work as chefs and fighting the other when needed. Maduka is an Igbo man, as is Ezinne, and Asake is Yoruba.
