Original links are included though some may have expired.

The Numbers:
Feature films shot worldwide, 2007:

Country	Feature Films, 2003	Feature Films, 2007
Nigeria	662 (NFVCB)	>1500
India	943	1091
United States	459	590 (MPAA)
Japan	287	407 (MPPAJ)
Chinaa	?	402
France	183	288
Russia	?	200
Germany	80	173

What They Mean:

According to Screen Digest, the world's film hacks and auteurs shot 4,603 feature-length movies in 2005. Of this total, Asians accounted for 2,157 films, with about half done in India and Japan, China next in line. Latin production was a relatively modest 283 films. European filmmakers spent $5 billion to shoot 1,292 films, with French filmmakers spending the most and Iceland's directors shooting the most films per capita (10 for 300,000 people). American films, though second to India by shooting totals, are easily the most expensive and most widely shown. Off the list entirely, though, are the Nigeia's newly prolific "Nollywood" filmmakers.

Based in commercial capital Lagos, "Nollywood" traces its takeoff to a film called Living in Bondage, shot in 1992, which depicts a conspiracy to steal the inheritance of a chief's son. Two decades later, Nigerian filmmakers struggle with budgets too tight to afford celluloid film, the medium used by projectors in movie theaters, regular power outages and traffic jams, and occasional extortion. Nonetheless, they produce films by the hundreds rather than by the dozens -- gangster epics, romance, true crime, and so on. Nigeria's National Film and Video Censors Board counted 1,687 new releases in 2007, easily exceeding India's total. In total, the film industry is said to generate over $250 million a year in revenue, making it a national industry comparable to cocoa processing.

Nollywood films bypass the traditional theaters which fostered film-industry growth in the west, Latin America, and Asia. Instead they are shot direct to DVD, and are meant for home viewing in Nigeria, other West African countries, and emigrants abroad. Most of the DVDs cost the equivalent of $2 each; a typical movie costs $15,000 to film. By contrast, a Bollywood flick costs about $1 million to produce, and American movies average $25 million.

Further Reading:

Franco Sacchi, director of This is Nollywood, explains the Nigerian film business:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/
franco_sacchi_on_nollywood.html

The Nigerian Film Corporation reviews film development from 1997 to 2003:
http://nigfilmcorp.com/pdf/Film%20Analysis.pdf

Lagos-based Tribune assesses Nollywood as artistry:
http://www.tribune.com.ng/05022009/tue/arts2.html

European Audiovisual Observatory has global film industry statistics:
http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/reports/focus2008.pdf

As does UNESCO's statistical database:
http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev_en.php?
ID=3754_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC

A Nigerian movie site with reviews and order forms:
http://www.nigeriamovies.net/

An African film site:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/Africanfilm.html

Elsewhere in the world of cinema -- Hoping to create some "bridges of culture," Hollywood luminaries Annette Bening, Academy President Sid Ganis, et al., were instead greeted in Tehran by a demand from Mr. Javad Shamaqdari  "art and cinema advisor" to Iranian President Mahmoud for "insults" and "libels" against the Iranian nation in the recent films 300 and The Wrestler. 300 fictionalizes the Spartan standoff against Xerxes' cartoonishly wicked Persians in the battle of Thermopylae. (Many of PPI Trade and Global Markets staffers agree that Hollywood should apologize for 300, though not for the reasons Mr. Shamaqdari cites.) The objection to The Wrestler, technically an "independent" film rather than a Hollywood production, stems from a scene showing a wrestler dubbed the "Ayatollah" using the Iranian flag as a weapon. (We haven't seen it.) The Tehran Times on Iran's Hollywood visitors:
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=190280

... and some back story -- Mr. Shamaqdari is not the first to ask for the 300 apology. In 2006, the Iranian Mission did the same thing, in an angry but oddly scholarly press release which points out that in idealizing Sparta and bashing Persia, 300 totally ignores the fact that both Herodotus and Plutarch considered the place a totalitarian slave state. The Iranian Mission's case:
http://www.iran-un.org/pressaffairs/pressreleases/
2006/articles/300_press_release.pdf

Special Note: Research and drafting for this Fact by PPI Spring Research Associate Alex Smith.