Reels of Terror: Nollywood’s Cinematic Imagination of Insurgency and Terrorism in Contemporary Nigeria

The study adopts a qualitative interpretive approach, designed to explore how contemporary Nollywood films engage with the realities of terrorism, insurgency, and national insecurity in Nigeria. At its core, the research is a textual and discourse analysis of selected films that visualise fear, violence, and survival within the Nigerian social imagination. The data are drawn mainly from secondary sources the films themselves, critical reviews, media interviews, and scholarly essays on Nollywood and African cinema. By employing close reading techniques, the analysis focuses on narrative form, visual style, characterisation, and sound to uncover how filmmakers construct meaning and emotion within contexts of terror and resistance. The theoretical foundation rests on postcolonial theory, enriched by perspectives from trauma studies. Postcolonialism provides the intellectual framework for interrogating Nollywood’s role in reimagining and localising global discourses of terror, while trauma theory deepens the analysis of the psychological and moral complexities experienced by victims and societies under threat. Ultimately, this research underscores the cultural and intellectual significance of Nollywood as a moral lens through which Nigeria’s collective memory, suffering, and endurance are expressed. It demonstrates how film operates as a medium of witness and renewal, transforming terror into narratives of reflection, resilience, and hope.