I distinctively remember the first time I saw a Nollywood film about 10 years ago in my Ghanaian neighbor's flat: images of African middle class families in middle class crisis situations, that were dealt with in spectacular furnished living rooms with unusual, yet highly exciting conflict resolution methods. It took quite a lot of professional and semi-professional detours, personal encounters
and trips to Nigeria since that first encounter,
before I felt ready to embark on the adventure of making a documentary on what Nollywood is today. The Nigerian film industry in general is - to my opinion for good reasons - extremely proud of it's achievements. Nollywood can be considered a "media miracle", that started an African media industry from scratch, without any support or funding whatsoever. Neither the Nigerian government nor the Western world provided any assistance, which also has it's benefits today. Nobody has interfered in this purely market driven "re-invention" of African cinema, except the African audiences. Nollywood today is on the one hand very keen to maintain it's independence, yet equally interested to participate in the internationally operating film market. It was this particular moment in time, when it seemed rightly so to document the "status quo" in close cooperation with Peace Aniyam-Fiberesima, who founded and chairs the "African Movie Academy " with the ambition to take Nollywood to the next level, mainly in terms of technical achievements, through a transcontinental competition and many awareness raising activities she's involved with internationally. Over the years and many common projects, Peace as the "Ambassador of Nollywood" has become a close associate and friend and therefore agreed to become the protagonist of the movie. In that sense, it's very much a common project and without her support, this movie would have been impossible to be made. "Peace Mission" reflects her views on Nollywood maybe more than mine, but at heart we share the passion for a film industry, that has the potential of revolutionizing the image of Africa in the world.

Dorothee Wenner, January 2008