This post first ran in 2009…

Pieter Hugo is a photographer that consistently offers imagery that is startling, mezmerizing, and other worldly. His new series, Nollywood, is no exception. Hugo takes a look at the third largest film industry in the world, but it’s very different than world of movie-making we are familiar with. Movies are produced and marketed in a week, using low cost equipment, basic scripts, actors cast the day of the shooting, and improvised locations, with no permits necessary.

Pieter brought together a group of actors and crew of assistants to recreate Nollywood myths and symbols. Shot as if taken on the actual movie sets, the photographs reflect a fictional world where reality is suspended. These surrealistic images are uncomfortabley real, yet unreal, and like a good horror movie, keeps the viewer in suspense.