Ensemble of Experts: Relentless as ‘Nigerian Noir’

Since 2008, the Nigerian screen media industry has undergone structural changes that include the development of new distribution platforms, revenue streams, and production practices. This has attracted a small, well-resourced sphere of newcomers with film school training, access to formal finance, a studious familiarity with the stylistic trends of global media, and quite a different vision for Nigerian film. Andy Amadi Okoroafor’s crime film Relentless(2011) serves as an early example of this trend. Drawing on Okoroafor’s public comments and publicity materials, this essay examines the performance of “expertise” by media professionals, especially as training, technique, and taste become important markers of distinction that position a filmmaker apart from mainstream Nollywood. The film itself remakes the cityscape of Lagos as a noir dystopia, stylized after other noir cityscapes around the world. In this sense, I claim Okoroafor produces Lagos as a global cityscape, one in keeping with a film industry seen as moving toward greater global recognition and status.