FILMS NIGERIA FILES : GLOBAL ESSAY HONOURS

KANO - NIGERIA : A city in Northern Nigeria has turned into a machine for producing hundreds of movies and TV shows a year.

Hollywood and Bollywood maybe the two biggest '' woods,'' but in northern Nigeria there is a scrappy, thriving film-making industry, nicknamed Kannywood.

The name comes from Kano, both a city and a state, where moviemakers with modest means churn out an amazing number of productions, all while dealing with strict censors.

Nigeria's film industry perhaps is better known globally for its bustling Nollywood industry, based in the economic capital of Lagos. But Kannywood to the north, is a genre that focuses on different cultural aspects.

Mansura Isah, an actress, filmmaker and producer in Kano, is a leading figure who has worked in the business since 2001.

Today, at 40 years old, she is particularly proud of '' Jodha, '' a film she finished making late last year. The film touches in part on social issues including H.I.V. awareness and early marriage.

But when Isah took the final cut to the Nano Censorship Board in January, a process every Kannywood filmmaker must go through before a movie can be released, she broke down in tears over the ruling.

The officials ordered her to cut out most of a birthing scene.

'' They just told me that the way I lifted my legs was not OK, that men can have a fantasy,'' she said.  She had spent a lot on the movie and especially on that scene, she said, because it's '' the core story.''

'' Without that scene,'' she added, '' that movie can never be the movie that I want people to see.''

Kano state, with a population of more than 16 million, is one of the most populous states in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. Of Nigeria's 36 states, only four have censorship boards.

And while there is a national censorship board in Lagos, it focuses mostly on fiscal accountability, said Abdalla Uba Adamu, a Kannywood expert and former professor of media and cultural communication at Bayero University in Kano.

'' The national censorship board doesn't care if you appear naked,'' he said. '' I think it's more for auditing purposes.''

The World Students Society thanks Ricci Shryock.