The Nigerian video film industry known as Nollywood forms one of the world’s biggest entertainment industries today. In its stories, Nollywood reflects the values, desires and fears of African viewers and shows them new postcolonial forms of performative self-expression. In that way, it has become a point of reference for a wide range of people. As such, it not only excites a large number of viewers inside and outside Nigeria but also inspires some of them to make their own films. This nascent phenomenon of Nollywood inspired filmmaking is the starting point of my doctoral thesis and this article. By applying the methods of shared anthropology and performance ethnography I study a group of African migrants making their own film in Switzerland.