Journal of Development Communication And Applied Theatre

In Nollywood filmmaking, the director undoubtedly embodies the artistic persona whose role orchestrates every element of production, ensuring that the collective vision of his collaborators (crew and actors) aligns with his production style and philosophy. Therefore every directorial decision has a great influence on the creative decision of his creative team. Recently, Nollywood directors most especially, Yoruba film industry are stepping up their arts through the adoption of syncretic artifice and cultural hybridity in their contemporary film to attract attention of the global audience. This paper therefore interrogates the triangular dimensions of syncretic artifice and cultural hybridity in Nollywood film directing. These dimensions (technical execution, acting and screen crafting, and linguistic intercession) constitute the director‘s arsenal for embedding creative and cultural resonance within cinematic narratives. The study adopts visual analysis as it methodology while Homi Bhabha‘s cultural hybridity forms the theoretical framework of the study as it would afford us juxtaposition of different artistic and cultural elements in the triangular dimensions. The study highlights the director‘s reliance not only on verbal art but also on nonverbal and cinesemiotics communication expressive modes. The integration of traditional African festivals and indigenous art forms, synthetic war culture into filmic practice underscores the vitality of Nollywood‘s syncretic aesthetics. Conclusively this triangular dimension demonstrates creative ingenuity of Nollywood directors in navigating cultural hybridity and syncretic artifice to achieve creative excellence and box-office breakthrough for the films.

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