09/01/2026

LYFE FRIDAY | JAN 9, 2026

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Nollywood-Bollywood love affair T HE greeting namaste associated with yoga and the Pidgin word for trouble, wahala , widely used across means “Hello trouble” – was “her schooling” in film, she said. Shot in Lagos, it is about an Indian investment banker who falls in love with a Nigerian lawyer – and their parents’ struggle to accept their union. A potpourri of languages, actors switch between English, Pidgin and Hindi. o Filmmaker fuses Indian, Nigerian culture

“I decided to jump in without a thought,” she recalled during a recent interview in the bustling mega-metropolis of Lagos, where she lives.

the world thanks to Afrobeats, speak to Indian and Nigerian influences on the English language. But the film industries of the two countries, each regional behemoths, have rarely crossed cultures. Indian-Nigerian filmmaker Hamisha crossed Daryani Ahuja, however, did just that, naming her first movie – aimed at bringing together the world’s two largest film industries, Bollywood and Nollywood – Namaste Wahala . “Nollywood has grown up on Bollywood,” the Mumbai-born, Lagos-raised Hamisha said in an interview, referring to the popularity of Bollywood films in Nigeria. “How come they never come together?” she said. Her film became a global hit when it was released by Netflix during the Covid-19 pandemic – signalling the start of a collaboration between the two massive movie sectors. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi even mentioned the film during his visit to Nigeria in late 2024. And another Namaste Wahala film is now in the works, Hamisha revealed. Since the 2020 release of her debut film, She has also had a Netflix series called Postcards and is preparing to premiere Simi and Friends this year. With no formal movie-making training, Namaste Wahala – a cross-cultural rom-com whose title r al y 9 rt he er

Hamisha says aside from being a director, producer and sometimes actor, she is also the designated translator. – AFPPIC w I

Namaste Wahala is a love story between two cultures and can be streamed on Netflix. – IMDBPIC

Afrobeats While not a direct sequel, her new Namaste Wahala movie includes heavy doses of Afrobeats – a major Nigerian cultural export and one of the world’s most influential and fast-growing musical genres. She added she was confident the Afrobeats music featured in her new production would also strike a chord with Indian audiences, recalling having heard Nigerian singer Rema’s hit Calm Down played in a Mumbai hotel lobby. Asked whether she had encountered challenges in producing cross-culturally, she acknowledged that it could throw up surprises.

An Indian actor in one of the casts expected a “vanity van” akin to a five-star hotel to hang out, change and do make-up between shoots, she said. Such a thing did not exist in Lagos at the time. Looking for Nigerian food while on a shoot in India is not always easy either. “When I took my Nigerian actors to India, we had to go and source Nigerian food because the palette, although we all like spice, it’s not the same,” Hamisha said. Aside from being the director, producer and at times actor, “I’m also the translator, and not necessarily only the language, but culture” too, she added. – AFP “When a film is accessible to a hundred people on a platform with poor security, it can quickly be pirated and circulated everywhere,” said Mustapha, the censor board secretary. Bollywood inspiration The industry is known for its scrappiness, but the key to international growth is better production equipment, said director Umar Abdulmalik. With top-notch stories and production, the language barrier will not be an issue, he predicted, noting how India’s Bollywood has become a media staple in Nigeria, despite many viewers not speaking English or Hindi, “because they are carried away by the characters’ emotions”. For now though, there is one tradition that Kannywood seems set to stick with: doing more with less. On the set of Wata Shida , the heat was rising as the call to prayer rang out from mosques nearby.

which is also packed with Indo-Nigerian cultural content. The protagonist is a toddler, the daughter of a Nigerian father and an Indian mother. Her tiffin has plantain and samosas, the two countries’ staple snacks. “It’s fun, it’s light. I’m bringing India and Nigeria together because it just works. People love it. People see themselves. “Our cultures are so similar. And I think that is also why Nigerians grew up on Bollywood because they recognise it, it’s more conservative, more family tradition, more values” than Hollywood in the US, she said. an pl

‘Our cultures are so similar’ India and Nigeria combined are probably the world’s biggest diaspora, “we have mass populations but more than that, but maybe less tangible, our culture is so loud”, the 41-year-old said. Nollywood is the second-most prolific film industry in the world after Bollywood in the sheer number of films it pumps out each year. Hamisha, a mother of two young boys, is putting the final touches to the animated Simi and Friends ,

Nigeria’s ‘Kannywood’ tiptoes between censor boards, modernity LONG overshadowed by Nigeria’s Nollywood, filmmakers in the north of Africa’s cinema powerhouse are pushing boundaries in search of international eyeballs – all while navigating the Muslim-majority region’s social conservatism. state, the bustling cultural hub of northern Nigeria, and a government censor board reviews music and film production. Hausa-focused streamers Last year when AFP visited Ibrahim’s set, he was filming season two of Wata Shida , a series about a woman confronted with the prospect of a forced marriage. Prime are from the country’s richer south, where Hausa is a minority language. “They have more budget, more equipment, they have more sponsors, more investors,” Garba told AFP. That might be changing.

Kamilu Ibrahim is among the directors hoping to break the mould – in addition to pushing to include “aspects that are not commonly seen in Hausa films”, Ibrahim has also put English and Arabic subtitles in his work in a bid to reach a wider audience. Filmmakers still find a way to focus on selfsame themes that dominate Nollywood: vengeance, love and treason all make good fodder for the – at times over-the-top – melodrama Nigerian movies are known for. But “sexual scenes”, nudity as well as “content that is contrary to customs, religions and traditions” are all out of bounds said Abba El Mustapha, an actor and director who also serves as the executive secretary of the Kano state film censorship board.

In order to get out of it, she marries another man, with both of them seeking the convenience of a partnership on paper instead of a real romance – an on-the-nose plotline in a region where women and girls are frequently wedded to their parents’ choice of husband. “We are not used to seeing someone going out in pursuit of a dream without family consent,” Ibrahim said, noting the importance of films to “question certain important social issues”. Wata Shida actor Adam Garba expressed hopes to see the series broadcast on a major streaming platform one day – though for now, it is available on YouTube. Most Nigerian films on major streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon

Young creatives – influenced not just by their peers in the wealthier Christian south of the country, but even as far as India – are hoping to expand the audience beyond Nigeria’s borders for the north’s frenetic “Kannywood” cinema industry, known for churning out some 200 films monthly. With some 80 million speakers of the north’s Hausa language spread across west and central Africa – not to mention the vast Nigerian diaspora around the world – Kannywood’s potential market is huge. Yet reconciling international expectations with local constraints is no easy task: Islam’s sharia law code runs alongside common law in Kano

Freshly launched Arewaflix is a new streaming initiative from Abdurrahman Muhammad Amart, a Nigerian production company CEO. Arewaflix will be a service “not only for Hausa films, but also for films in other languages from northern Nigeria”, including Nupe and Kanuri, Abdurrahman said. Subtitles are planned in Arabic, French and English. It is not the first such attempt: Northflix, another Hausa-focused effort, shuttered in 2023 amid slow growth. Getting people to pay for media is tough in any country. Nigeria – where millions live in poverty, compounded by an economic crisis since 2023 – is no exception.