Consuming Nollywood in Turin, Italy

In the light of Nollywood global success, this paper examines the consumption of Nollywood movies among Nigerian immigrants in Turin, Italy, trying to answer the following questions: in what ways are these movies related to the experience of migration? What relationships do they establish with the homeland? How does this relationship vary with migration? I argue that Nigerians in Turin watch Nollywood movies daily, not so much to reconnect themselves with an idealized homeland, temporarily avoiding the present hardship, but more to measure themselves against a familiar, symbolic, and discursive order to cope with feelings of disorientation in a foreign society. Recently arrived Nigerians tend to cling to Nollywood plots to find familiar interpretative schemas through which to decipher the alienating new country and give an acceptable meaning to their tough situation. Those who have been in Italy for decades use Nollywood movies to critically re-think their own culture, distancing themselves from certain parts, while reaffirming the validity of others. I conclude arguing that Nollywood movies are still pertinent in Italy thanks to their shallow characters and plots that stimulate the public in constructing meanings. It is thank to this active consumption that the transnational movies of Nollywood take part in the dynamics of cultural change in the predicament of migration.