Nigeria, Nov. 15 -- Long before Netflix, Prime Video, and other streaming platforms courted Nigerian filmmakers, the country's movie industry ran on videocassettes, Video CDs (VCDs) and, later, DVDs, sold from cramped shops in Lagos and Onitsha.

Between the late 1990s and the 2000s, the era now remembered as the home-video period, a network of marketers financed, packaged and distributed the films that gave Nollywood its first mass audience. Copies moved from Idumota in Lagos and Onitsha in Anambra State to the markets of Aba, Abia State, and Accra, Ghana, reaching viewers hungry for stories in which they recognised themselves.

For many Nigerians, their legacy lives on in a single sound. Every trailer of the era closed with a fast-talki...