Nigerian Evangelical Film Genres: The Spectacle of the Spiritual

The Nollywood scholar Jonathan Haynes has suggested that a useful task for Nollywood scholars would be to develop categories of genre classification. This paper attempts a genre classification of the sermon genre and the film of the spirit genre, in particular as developed by the film traditions developed by Mount Zion Faith Ministries International. Indigenous evangelical video on Nigeria was first popularised by Mike Bamiloye, the founder of Mount Zion Faith Ministries. Mount Zion Film Productions has become the most prominent film group in Nigeria, their film work developing out of their travelling stage productions. I give an overview of the approach taken by Mount Zion Film Productions, to casting as well as production, and proceed to an overview of the two most prominent genres used in their films, the sermon genre and the film of the spirit. The paper identifies the genre characteristics of sermon films and spirit films, and also attempts to account for the appeal of the spirit films beyond members the church. Muslims as well as adherents of Yoruba traditional belief systems, I argue, respond to these films because of the syncretic representations of the spirit world.