Femi Adebayo Launches Cinema In Oregun, Lagos

Popular Nollywood actor Femi Adebayo has commissioned his Euphoria 360 Hub in Oregun, Lagos. The multi-purpose facility includes cinema-grade production spaces, post-production suites, recording studios and a film academy.

The launch immediately sparked heated reactions online, with fans speculating on what the hub could mean for Nigeria’s cinema industry.

Femi Adebayo concluded by framing the project as the fulfilment of a vision he has carried for years.

With the end-of-year film season approaching, the hub is expected to become a key part of the industry’s infrastructure.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.