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JAMS 14 (2) pp. 327–339 Intellect Limited 2022
Journal of African Media Studies
Volume 14 Number 2
www.intellectbooks.com 327
© 2022 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00081_1
Received 19 December 2019; Accepted 7 July 2021
MUHAMMAD MUHSINIBRAHIM
University of Cologne
Hausa film industry and the
‘menace’ of appropriation of
Indian romantic movies
ABSTRACT
Against many odds, the Hausa film industry alias Kannywood has come of age.
The film industry survives several pressing challenges from within and outside
Nigeria, perhaps more than its counterparts anywhere else. Although there is no
denying that the quality of its output has significantly improved, its survival has
little or nothing to do with that. Many critics, including the Motion Pictures
Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MOPPAN) leadership, call ‘bad’ films, are
still being made. Romantic movies, laden with a typical and predictable pattern of
the love triangle, song and dance sequences among other appropriated and plagia-
rized Bollywood modalities, remain the favourite of producers and arguably that
of the audience. However, according to some surveys, such films lack merit in
the realm of critical film discourse in Africa and beyond. This article is set out to
discuss this issue through a content analysis of a recent film titled Sareena (Nuhu
2019). The movie, released in 2019, is a bloated, implausible melodrama and a
direct mimicry of a famous Indian film, Kaabil (Gupta 2017).
INTRODUCTION
Romance as a subject matter in a fictional world permeates every genre of
literature and film. (‘Romance’ means several things at different periods.
Here, the term refers to any text about love or ‘woman’s film’ [Branston 2006];
KEYWORDS
appropriation
Bollywood
Hausa
Kannywood
MOPPAN
plagiarism
romance
April2022
327
339
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim
328 Journal of African Media Studies
[see Lee 2014].) It is, perhaps, as old as both literature and film. Therefore, it
is difficult for many filmmakers to avoid romance in all its several forms as
either the central theme or sub-theme of their story. However, it is the way
romance is handled that is different and makes it attractive or otherwise. From
Hollywood, especially during its studio era (c. 1920–60), which nearly always
contains romantic sub-plots (Branston 2006: 52), to Bollywood and across
all other film industries worldwide, many directors have treated the motif of
love from diverse, novel perspectives. As individuals, each person may have a
different experience of love. Therefore, Mr A’s story is often not the same as Mr
B’s or Mr C’s and so on. In Kannywood, though, the love stories and plots are
more similar than dissimilar.
It is hard to get reliable statistics on Kannywood. Historically, there are
movies on love more than any other theme. To bolster this claim, Kabiru
Maikaba, a leading figure of the Motion Pictures Practitioners Association
of Nigeria (MOPPAN), declared that ‘[a]bout 80 per cent of the films we
produce in Kannywood are [sic] all based on love and relationships, which
is not supposed to be’ (Lere 2019: n.pag.). He added that the industry should
instead make films about the rich history and culture of northern Nigeria.
Consequently, the association will begin sanctioning any filmmaker that
makes a film on love. Although the move could give the embattled industry
a new face, it is impracticable for several reasons. The association does not
license films, support or sponsor the production of any, among other reasons.
Given the above brief introduction, this article traces, assesses and prob-
lematizes appropriation of love-cum-Hindi stories in Kannywood film indus-
try. A recent movie, Sareena (Nuhu 2019), is critically reviewed vis-à-vis its
Bollywood ‘original’, Kaabil (Gupta 2017), to demonstrate how the trend
lives on. The article also attempts to argue and show how the mostly unli-
censed appropriation affects the slow growth and diminishes the recognition
of Kannywood in Nigeria and Africa in general. Hesmondhalgh’s (2006: 142)
four main stages (namely formulating a problem, range and size of sample,
coding and counting, and interpreting) of content analysis method were used
for the analysis.
THE GENESIS OF RAMPANT ROMANCE-THEMED FILMS IN
KANNYWOOD
It is pertinent to go back to history to understand how love-themed stories
dominate Kannywood film industry productions. The legendary Barber
correctly observes that ‘creative forms are the products of particular histori-
cal conjunctures, particular situations, and bear the imprint of the forces and
preoccupations that made up the conditions of their emergence’ (2018: 178).
For Kannywood, stage dramas, Indian Bollywood films, among other foreign
films, and significantly the so-called Adabin Kasuwar Kano (‘Kano Market
Literature’) (Malumfashi 1994) or littattafan Soyayya (‘Love Stories’) (Furniss
2000) are the major precursors to its emergence in Muslim-Hausa northern
Nigeria in the last decade of the twentieth century. There is a preponderance
of romance-themed stories in all these genres.
Starting with stage drama, Olaniyan points out that
[t]he recurring themes in African popular drama are those with broad
appeal […] Particularly common in comedies and melodramas are
themes such as unrequited love, marital infidelity, unemployment,
Hausa film industry and the ‘menace’ of appropriation of Indian …
www.intellectbooks.com 329
pretensions to wealth, status, or sophistication, the conundrums of
modern city life, dreams of travel abroad, and so on.
(Olaniyan 2004: 39–40)
These are the usual subject matters in stage dramas across Africa, for Olaniyan
is not talking exclusively about northern Nigerian setting. Interestingly, after
a drama group called Timbin Giwa began what later came to be known as
Kannywood with the production of a home-video, Turmin Danya (1990, dir.
Galadanci), such themes mutated and migrated from the stage to the screen.
Since the 1950s, Indian films have enjoyed a considerable acceptance
among audiences in the northern Nigerian, primarily Muslim-Hausa popu-
lation (Larkin 1997). The films were first introduced to the region by some
Lebanese exhibitors and later on entrepreneurs who established viewing
centres in strategic locations across the conservative region. Soon, Indian films
became popular due, chiefly, to the perceived similarities between the Hindu
and Hausa cultures (Larkin 1997). Anecdotal evidence shows that in their
movies, especially in the 1990s downward, no other theme is more dominant
than fantastical love relationships. Besides the influence described above from
the stage drama plots, Hausa filmmakers ‘borrow heavily and sometimes copy
explicitly’ (2008: 172) from these Indian films.
Since the ‘market literature’ was also inspired by Bollywood, the same
thematic preoccupation spills over to their texts. Furniss (2003), M. Adamu
(2002), McCain (2014), Ibrahim (2018), Musa (2019), among other schol-
ars, have discovered that the influence of Hausa novels is enormous on
Kannywood. Therefore, ‘following the exceptional success of Turmin Danya,
some Hausa authors joined the Kannywood industry at its initial stage. They
started transforming their love stories into low budget video films’ (Ibrahim
2018: 106). Ado Ahmad Gidan-Dabino, one of the veteran Hausa novelists, is
among such writers. Gidan-Dabino mentions that books set on love, first and
foremost, became the only selling stories in the saturated market. He adds
thus:
The fact that the writings of these authors concern love, and most of
their readers are young; thus, you will mostly find young men and
women buying the books in the market. And the booksellers themselves
prefer Love Stories because they are well received by their customers.
If one brings them a book which is not a Love Story, they are not so
pleased and will not welcome it with open arms because, if it is not a
Love Story, it does not sell so well.
(Gidan-Dabino 2011: 25)
Gidan-Dabino went further to adapt his two novels, Inda So Da Kauna and
Wani Hanin Ga Allah to films with the same titles in 1993 and 1994, respec-
tively (Ibrahim 2018). Soon, other writers followed suit. Adamu Muhammad,
the author of Kwabon Masoyi, produced a film based on the text and the same
title; Dan’azumi Baba Chediyar Yan Gurasa, Bala Anas Babinlata, Balaraba
Ramat Muhammad, Nazir Adam Saleh, among others, all did the same
(M. Adamu 2002). In the south-eastern region of Nigeria, Igbo filmmakers
also looked at the Onitsha Market Literature for inspirations (while the Yoruba
filmmakers in the south-west do mostly get their inspiration from Yoruba folk-
lores). Adesokan traces that ‘[w]riters such as Adewale Maja-Pearce (2001)
and Onookome Okome (2002) have made this connection, citing the [Igbo]
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim
330 Journal of African Media Studies
films’ preoccupation with themes of love, money, and the cruelty of the city as
points of intersection with the Onitsha pamphlets’ (2004: 194). However, the
Igbo filmmakers, as well as their Yoruba counterparts, are no longer boxed on
love but other diverse issues (Okome 2010).
In contrast to the aforementioned Igbo and Yoruba contemporary filmmak-
ers, Abdalla Uba Adamu, a professor of Media and Cultural Communication
and the foremost scholar on Kannywood, once told the BBC Hausa that
he alone had more than 150 Kannywood films that were ripped-off from
Bollywood (BBC Hausa programme, ‘Gane Mana Hanya’, 15 November
2014). In other words, he had Kannywood movies that are based on simplis-
tic, predictable romance Indian films. Today, Kannywood plagiarizes even
Nollywood. For instance, Nai Miki Uzuri (Gumzak 2016) explicitly copies
Kokomma (Robson 2012). In a particular example, Adamu adds that due to the
rampancy of ripping off other films,
the Hausa video filmmakers fall over themselves in copying a Hindi
film. For instance, Nagin (1976) a Hindi film (which itself was ripped-off
by Bollywood from a Pakistani film of the same name) was copied into
Macijiya (‘snake’) and Kububuwa (‘cobra’) by Hausa filmmakers.
(Adamu 2006: 43)
The trend goes on unabated.
However, it is noteworthy that not all Kannywood movies centred on
romance or are a mere imitation of other films. Since its second decade of
existence, Larkin describes the film industry as ‘one of the most vibrant forms
of African media’ (2004: 299). Of course, some other topics are covered by
some of the industry’s creative, brilliant producers and directors. M. Adamu
(2002: 207) categorizes Kannywood films into romance (Kilu Ta Ja Bau); family
life (Saudatu); crime (Wata Shari’a sai a Lahira); social problems (Wasila);
corruption (Wasiyya) and politics (Gaskiya Dokin Karfe). Nevertheless, from
2003 onwards, the film industry underwent some transformation as younger,
urbanized entrants overtook its affairs. These Young Turks see the West as the
arbiter of modernity and the East as the primary inspiration source. Thus, they
specialize on westernization and Indianization of Hausa cinema. According to
Adamu, ‘Ali Nuhu, the Hausa-speaking actor, and later producer and director
[…] pioneered the Hindi-to-Hausa cloning’ (2006: 56) films.
Adamu elsewhere explains that:
The video production values of the new video moguls – predominantly
Hausanized ethnic non-Hausa but with a few Hausa among them –
were not informed by household dramas, rustic settings, or moralis-
ing sermons; and the films were not made to appease the traditionalist
establishment. Their main creative mechanism was the appropriation
of Hindi Masala films, revamped into Hausa copies, complete with
storylines, songs and choreography. In this new age of Hausa video film,
the genres of the founding fathers disappeared – and a spicy masala
mixture of videos appeared combining several genres in one video and
attempting to copy as many Hindi films as they could.
(Adamu 2011: 90)
Adamu (2011) was the first to coin the term ‘Bollywoodanci’ (meaning that
which follows the pattern of Bollywood in Hausa) to refer to the central
Hausa film industry and the ‘menace’ of appropriation of Indian …
www.intellectbooks.com 331
thrust of this new group of young, educated and urban filmmakers, most
of whom are avid Bollywood fans. Their ‘seniors’ or the ‘founding fathers’
in the industry are no less massive Bollywood fans, though. However, they
tend to be more artistic in their handling of films that are decidedly inspired
by Hindi films. Therefore, the traces of Bollywoodanci are arguably not too
evident if it is visible in their movies. Arguably, it is a different case from
Julia Kristeva’s (1980) intertextuality concept, which is often coincidental.
Kristeva’s argument centres around originality or lack of it in a text, adding
that other previous texts influence the production of another, new text.
However, beyond the concept of intertextuality, the apparent degree and
types of adaptation and/or appropriation existing between texts call for more
thorough observation and call for a corresponding vocabulary to describe
what happens (Brooker 2007).
First, Sanders defines adaptation as ‘a cinematic version of canonical plays
and novels’, while appropriation refers to a process that ‘frequently affects
a more decisive journey away from the informing source into a wholly new
cultural product and domain’ (2006: 23–26). While a few such films may border
on appropriation (cf. Sanders 2006), many others are not. In this case, to apply
the taxonomy developed in Gerard Genette’s Palimpsests (1997), what occurs
in most Kannywood films, including the one under question, is plagiarism.
Kannywood filmmakers barely acknowledge their source texts as is recom-
mended in adaptation and appropriation. Sanders further explains that fail-
ure to do that ‘brings into play, sometimes in controversial ways, questions of
intellectual property, proper acknowledgement, and, at its worse, the charge of
plagiarism’ (2006: 32). Some scholars like Greenberg (1991) are relatively soft
on this practice by describing it as an unacknowledged, disguised remake. In
any case, plagiarism is not the primary concern here; instead, it is about copy-
ing Indian romantic films and its implication.
There is a growing acceptance of the so-called India-Hausa films, mainly
Telugu and mainstream Hindi Bollywood films dubbed in the Hausa language,
among the audience of Kannywood in northern Nigeria today. Many people
see no differences in the two – dubbed and Hausa films – as both are mostly
about ‘romance’. Adamu (2019) finds that the first of such films, B. Manic
(Namma Ooru Poovatha [Manivasagam 1990]), appeared in the late 1990s.
Now, there are hundreds of India-Hausa films and series in the market and on
free-to-air TV stations.
The impact or effect of Bollywood cinema goes beyond Kannywood films.
Suppose one considers other forms of media produced and consumed in parts
of Africa. In that case, one can argue that this flamboyant Indian cinema’s
influence is infectious and encompasses much of African cinematic world and
life (Larkin 1997). Arguably, none of such cinemas copies as many Bollywood
filmic cultures as Kannywood does or as northern Nigerian people. There
are Indian film fans who understand the Hindi language quite well. Nazeer
Abdullahi Magoga has, for instance, published phrasebooks for learning the
language such as Fassarar Indiyanchi a Sauƙaƙe (‘Hindi language made easy’),
Fassarar Waƙoƙin India (‘Translation of Hindi film songs’), etc. Citing another
case, Larkin narrates that:
The iconography, sounds, and images of Indian films constitute a vibrant
visual and aural part of Hausa urban life. Stickers of Indian stars embla-
zon visual trucks, cars, and bikes. Famous actors are given Hausa nick-
names, such as Sarkin Rawa (‘King of dancing’) for Govinda, or Dan daba
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim
332 Journal of African Media Studies
(‘Hooligan’) for Sanjay Dutt. Many Hausa youth adopt Indian names, and
young men try to walk like Sanjay Dutt and talk like Shah Rukh Khan.
(Larkin 2008: 196)
The following two tables contain some of such Kannywood films appropriated
or plagiarized from Bollywood films. The lists are in no way exhaustive.
Table 1: Appropriated Hindi films in Hausa.
Hausa video film Appropriated Hindi film Appropriated element
Al’ajabi Ram Balram (1980) Song
Alaqa Suhaag (1940), Mann (1999) Songs
Aljannar Mace Gunda Raj (1995) Songs
Bakace Tere Naam (2003) Storyline
Burin Zuciya Raazia Sultaan (1961) Storyline
Ciwon Ido Devdas (2002) Storyline
Dafa’i Ghayal (1990) Storyline
Danshi Bazigar (1993) Storyline
Dijengala Khoon Bhari Maang (1988) Storyline
Hisabi Gunda Raj (1995), Angarkshak (1995) Songs
Ibro Dan Indiya Mohabbat (1997), Rakshak (1996) Songs
Inuwar Rayuwa Main Pyar Kiya (1989) Storyline
Jazaman Lahu Ke Do Rang (1997) Songs
Khusufi Taal (1999) Storyline/song/poster
Sharadi Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) Songs
Shaukin So Pyar Ishq Aur Mohabbat (2001) Scenes/songs
So Bayan Ki Kuch Kuch Hota Hal (1998) Songs
Tanadi Judaai (1997) Storyline
Zabari Mein Khiladi Tu Anari (1996), Mohra (1998) Choreography
Zo Mu Zauna Khabie Khushi Khabi Gain (2001) Storyline
Source: Adamu (2007).
Table 2: Appropriated Hindi films in Hausa.
Hindi film
(source) Director Year
Hausa film
(remake) Director Year
Jan Tak Hai Jaan Yash Chopra 2012 Ni da ke
mun dace
Ali Nuhu 2013
Swades Ashutosh Gowarike 2004 Kudi a duhu Ali Nuhu 2013
Bombay to Goa Raj Pendurkar 2007 Hanyar
Kano
Iliyasu
Abdulmumin
2014
Rawdy Rathore Prabhu Deva 2012 Ana haka Iliyasu
Abdulmumin
2015
Hausa film industry and the ‘menace’ of appropriation of Indian …
www.intellectbooks.com 333
THE ‘ORIGINAL’, KAABIL
Rohan Bhatnagar (Hrithik Roshan), a blind, brilliant, happy young man works
as a voice-over artist for a living. He meets Supriya Sharma (Yami Gautam),
who is also blind, but very independent. The two fall in love and get married.
Amit Shellar (Rohit Roy), a spoilt brother to an influential politician, disturbs
their joy. After a heated argument with the couple, Amit invites his friends and
gang rapes weak Supriya. All efforts to take her to the hospital to be clinically
examined for further investigation were scuttled by Amit’s henchmen, result-
ing in police declaring Rohan and his wife as liars.
Devastated Rohan shuns his equally distressed wife. To add insult to
injury, Amit comes back and rapes Supriya for the second time. She cannot
bear the increasingly compounding situation and, therefore, commits
suicide. As soon as Rohan puts the pieces together that led him to identify
the assailants, he ventures into vengeance. With surgical precision, he kills
all of them.
From the beginning of the case, the police officer bribed to cover it by the
powerful politician, appears helpless to arrest Rohan. Even though he knows
he is responsible for the deaths of the two brothers and their accomplice, he
lacks evidence to prosecute Rohan. The Sanjay Gupta directed film ends on
this note.
THE ‘COPY’, SAREENA
As directed by Ali Nuhu, the eponymous film tells the story of two blind
couples who struggle with an intruder. Sareena (Maryam Yahaya) is a phar-
macist while her husband, Farouk (Umar M. Shareef), is a nursery school
teacher. One fateful morning, Babangida aka Bangis (Shamsu Dan Iya)
sights Sareena and talks to her, but she outright snubs him. He vows to
have her by all means. He traces her house and offers her husband money
to divorce her for him. Farouk furiously rejects that and warns Bangis
to stay away from his wife. In response, he promises to destabilize the
marriage. Following several encounters, Bangis succeeds in his quest and
rapes defenceless Sareena.
Upon learning about the rape, Farouk withdraws from Sareena and
disgustingly refuses her food. Babangida’s attempt to rape her again fails, but
that leads to her ‘death’. Consequently, Farouk embarks on a revenge mission.
He reports the case to the police who advise him to drop it as the accused’s
Hindi film
(source) Director Year
Hausa film
(remake) Director Year
Kick Sajid Nadiadwala 2014 Gwaska Adam A. Zango 2015
Rakih vs Ladies Yash Raj 2011 2011 Basaja Adam A. Zango 2012
Bhoot Ram Gopal Varma 2003 Almuru Ahmed Biffa 2014
Raaz 3 Vikram Bhatt 2012 BakinKishi Hafiz Bello 2013
Ankur Arora
murder case
Suhail Tatari 2013 Asibiti Mansur Sadik 2015
Chori Chori
Chupke Chupke
Mustan Burmawalla
& Abbas Burmawalla
2001 Furuci Sadiq N. Mafia 2016
Source: Inuwa (2016).
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim
334 Journal of African Media Studies
father is a notorious lawyer and an influential politician. Nevertheless, a newly
posted police inspector, Khalid (Ali Nuhu), offers to assist him. Together, they
plot a scene where Babangida confesses raping Sareena, which, unknown to
him, is secretly videotaped. The footage, which, paradoxically, contains over
the shoulder shots (OTS) and point of view (POV) images, is subsequently
broadcast on the local TV stations. Soon afterwards, the police arrest him.
In the end, Sareena reappears. The audiences are told that even the death is
faked to lure Bangis to admit his wrongdoing.
DISCUSSION
The whole concept of Sareena is unmistakeably from Kaabil. However, the
director of the former followed the scripted trick of changing a few sequences
and inserting other familiar Kannywood narrative devices. This attempt to
obscure the fact that it is a copy of an Indian film falls too short to do that.
Besides the central idea of two visually impaired couple getting their lives
interrupted by a spoilt son of a wealthy, influential family, there are several
other instances of striking similarity. Although ‘Kaabil’ means ‘capable’, the
Indian original is, itself, too fictional and, according to some critics’ opinion,
should not have a place in this highly rational world. Mike McCahill remarks
on Kaabil that ‘Sanjay Gupta’s tale of a blind dubbing artist avenging the ghost
of his wife is the sort of nonsense the Indian film industry stopped churning
out 20 years ago’ (2017: n.pag.). Larkin (2008: 171) quotes an Indian cultural
theorist Ashis Nandy (1998: 7) who writes about Indian cinema but in ways
directly relevant to Nigerian films. Nandy argues that ‘the repetitive storylines,
grandiloquent dialogue, and outrageous plots [seen in Bollywood films] repre-
sent a world of fantasy and myth that was supposed to atrophy with the rise
of modern, rational world’.
I will discuss and briefly analyse four significant incidents in both films to
highlight their point of convergence. For a start, both are melodramatic, punc-
tuated by several songs and dance sequences. Both tell stories about two blind
couples whose peaceful, loveable life is interrupted by a thug who relies on his
friends’ assistance, the backing of an influential family member and the cover
of some corrupt cops.
First, in Kaabil, there is a sequence where Supriya gets lost in a very
crowded mall. Rohan has to ask people around for assistance, including the
MC of an event at the shopping mall’s centre. Almost the same action is
repeated in Sareena, though in an open space. In what looks like a subver-
sion of Kannywood cinematic conventions, the lovebirds sing right there.
Simultaneously, a familiar face in the film industry and beyond, called MC
Malam Ibrahim Shahrukhan, appears with a microphone and helps Farouk
find Sareena.
Second, in both films, the leading actresses are raped by the same kind of
character: a pampered goon, abetted by his loyal friends. Moreover, the rapists
do it not once but twice. However, in Sareena, the goon does not succeed the
second time. But both are members of influential families whose father (in
Sareena) and brother (in Kaabil) can stand for them until the cases are dropped
and forgotten. The desperate trick to distort the striking resemblance does not
help.
Third, in both films, the husbands of the raped wives find them repulsive
after the incidents and stop eating their food. In other words, they fall short
in giving their wives the emotional support they badly need. One noticeable
Hausa film industry and the ‘menace’ of appropriation of Indian …
www.intellectbooks.com 335
difference here is that Sareena does not commit suicide or die as Supriya does.
The suicide is deliberately avoided because it is a big taboo in the cultural
and religious milieu of the film’s setting. Kannywood struggles with state
cultural and religious establishments. Therefore, the filmmakers sometimes
try to avoid portrayals that could exacerbate their already frosty relationship
with the hegemonic establishment. Instead, the makers of Sareena twisted the
narrative and show that she is, after all, not dead.
Fourth, the police appear heartless, uncooperative and corrupt. In both
instances, they cite the fact that the accused relative is powerful. Hence, it is
a waste of time, energy and resources to pursue the case. While in Kaabil, the
police inspector digs more in-depth and tries to arrest Rohit for his vengeance.
In Sareena, the police inspector offers to assist Farouk in getting justice. No
discerning spectator could ignore the parallel between these two scenarios,
though.
In her writing about West African popular video-movies, even though in
another context, Garritano ‘complains’ about their ‘brazenly commercial and
non-ideological orientation and unapologetic deployment of aesthetics of
excess and affect’ (2013: 250). These reasons ‘set them apart from realist and
politicised narratives by internationally celebrated African authors and cine-
astes’ (Garritano 2013: 250). It feels like Garritano was talking about the vast
difference between the Kannywood films and sociopolitically committed
African filmmakers such as the legendary Ousmane Sembène, Souleymane
Cisse, Adamu Halilu, among others. The latter’s magnum opus, Shaihu Umar,
set and produced in northern Nigeria in 1976 is still shown at film festivals
and studied at universities globally.
In contrast, characters in Sareena lack depth and grasp of their lines, for
the narratives are apparently built on the mechanics of melodrama (Garritano
2013) that are themselves poorly copied from another foreign film. In sum, to
borrow from Singer, everything about the movie is ‘outrageous coincidence,
implausibility, convoluted plotting, and episodic strings of action that stuff
too many events together’ (2001: 46). Else, how could a blind lady unable to
distinguish naira notes when paying a trader (in the first sequence) be a phar-
macist? The audiences are only told (not shown!) of her and her husband’s gift
and brilliance that enables them to navigate without a guide.
In a chaotic, contradictory portrayal, Sareena instinctively identifies the
person who stopped her on the road the previous day without him uttering a
word – this, too, is copied from Kaabil where a character declared that Rohan’s
‘nose has unmatchable power’ (min. 36:29). Surprisingly, still, she fails to do a
thing when he comes back to rape her. In her case, Supriya fights her attack-
ers until they tie her hands to the bed and stuff tissue into her mouth and
gag her. In another incredible depiction, Farouk rightly guesses Babangida’s
age before he speaks to him. In another scene, though, the same Babangida
passes right behind Farouk, sneaks into the house and assaults his wife. The
amazement does not end there; Babangida comes out undetected, unidenti-
fied. These scenes and more from the movie lend weighty credence to Singer’s
remark that such a film’s numerous coincidences are outrageous and absurd.
CONCLUSION
A film is indeed fictional. For instance, as a fantasy, the audience believes that
an innocent-looking, bespectacled young boy in Harry Potter can wake up
and use a wand to perform wonders. That is utterly believable for its genre.
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim
336 Journal of African Media Studies
Likewise, spectators consider fairy-tale-like characters like Salma-Salma
Duduf in Bala Anas Babinlata’s celebrated film of the same name to have
existed in the world of Kannywood, among others. But, the events in Sareena
are too outrageously good to be or even look true. Despite their sophis-
tication in shooting and whatnot, the Bollywood’s ‘original’, Kaabil, is not
immune from critical commentaries that disparage its rendition and its direc-
tor for bringing back narrative that should have been left in the past (cf. Mike
McCahill). If critics remarked this harshly about Kaabil, even though others
praised it, how Sareena deserves to be graded is better imagined. Therefore,
the prospect for such a film in any global film market, the academic sphere
and so on is very slim. The world does not respect nor condone plagiarism or
unauthorized appropriation.
Generally, and bluntly speaking, Kannywood may never be taken seri-
ously by many local and international film critics, academics, donor agencies
and corporations as long as they continue treading the path of plagiarism.
Adaptation and appropriation are established legal practices in the world of
filmmaking but never is plagiarism. Moreover, romantic-themed movies are
not the problem, but the way they are rendered. No film genre is free from
love sub-plots and sub-themes as it is part of human nature to experience
love. Thus, there are several, however, respected romantic films everywhere
in the world. Kannywood filmmakers should learn to be more original, crea-
tive and nuanced in their movies, lest they will always end in the footnotes of
African films and as an appendage of Nollywood. As the former MOPPAN
stakeholder Kabiru Maikaba argues, northern Nigeria has, indeed, rich culture
and history. The Hausa folklore and myth are other largely untapped sources
for intriguing stories.
In slight contradistinction to the above conclusion, the copying of western
and Indian films, norms and values could be a subtle reflection of the rapid
changes brought by globalization and acculturation. No postmodern society
is immune from such a move, either from the dominant (the West or India, in
the case of Kannywood) to the dominated or vice versa. However, plagiarism,
worse still, of a ‘maligned’ and ‘rejected’ genre (romance-themed movies) can
barely fit such global hybridization processes. Therefore, it should not have a
place or tolerated in the embattled, overlooked film industry.
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Ibrahim, Muhammad Muhsin (2022), ‘Hausa film industry and the “menace” of
appropriation of Indian romantic movies’, Journal of African Media Studies,
14:2, pp. 327–39, https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00081_1
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim teaches Hausa language, culture and film at
the Institute of African Studies and Egyptology of the University of Cologne,
Germany. He received his B.Ed. from Bayero University, Kano, MA from Lovely
Professional University, Punjab and Ph.D. from the University of Cologne. He
is an author, blogger and enthusiastic about journalism. He lives in Cologne
with his wife.
Hausa film industry and the ‘menace’ of appropriation of Indian …
www.intellectbooks.com 339
Contact: Institute of African Studies and Egyptology, University of Cologne,
Meister-Ekkehart-Straße 7, 50923 Cologne, Germany.
E-mail: muhsin2008@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6104-2445
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim has asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in
the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
