Avenues of participation and strategies of control: Video film production and social mobility in Ethiopia and southern Nigeria

With a few exceptions, the emerging field of production studies has dealt mainly with the analysis of Western film industries. This chapter addresses this gap by looking at the growing African digital film production industries in Southern Nigeria and Ethiopia, and by pointing out the specificities of the production cultures that have emerged within this context. By applying an ethnographic approach to the study of film production, this chapter highlights the ambiguous position that digital film production occupies in these two countries between, on the one hand, the creation of new avenues of economic and social mobility, and on the other the emergence of strategies of exclusion and control.