The number everybody quoted
On 26 September, 51,258 people stayed in Tafawa Balewa Square from the first scene of Black Market to the last, and Lagos took a Guinness World Record for the largest film screening at a single location. Since then the number has been everywhere, and it deserves to be. I just think the more interesting thing about this film is printed in much smaller type.
Three jobs, one name
Nora Awolowo had the idea for Black Market, produced it through Rixel Studios, sits on the executive producer list and was the director of photography. When we talk about producers in Nollywood we usually mean the people who find the money. Here the person who found the money also decided how every scene would look.
Around her, Fatimah Binta Gimsay directed her first feature and wrote it with Abdul Tijani-Ahmed. Omowunmi Dada and Susan Pwajok act in it and are also credited as executive producers, so two of the women leading the story were also backing it.
What is missing
Here is my position. The official credits on media platform (not film credit) name the director, the producers, the writers and fourteen actors, and then they stop. No editor, no sound, no costume, no makeup, no gaffers, no production designer. A film can fill a square with fifty thousand people and still leave half its crew off the page people actually read.
I am pointing at the whole industry here rather than this team, because almost every Nollywood release does the same. If we want an industry that people build careers in, the editor has to be as findable as the lead actor.
Help us finish it
If you cut, scored, dressed, lit or made up anyone on Black Market, send us your name and your job. We will add you to the team sheet.