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One of the rarest things to see in an American cineplex is a film by Africans, about Africans, starring Africans, with a script by Africans.

The Oscar contender “Hotel Rwanda,” you say? Well, the director is Irish, the starring actors American or British (Sophie Okonedo is British), and the complicated financing mostly American.

And so tomorrow night’s debut of “Behind Closed Doors,” a Nigerian made-and-produced melodrama at the AFI Silver, is altogether unique. The film kicks off the theater’s month-long African Film Showcase, providing a rare — and rough-hewn — look at pop cinema in the world’s most populous black nation.

The four films in the series are all from the chaotic hustle of “Nollywood,”

But the birth of Nollywood, in the Nigerian commercial capital of

“They’re very imaginative, they’re fast and loose and . . . there’s a sense of joy and fun about it all,” says Gabriel Wardell, the programmer at the AFI Silver who booked the series with the help of the media and entertainment company XXIV/VII Africa. “They can have some overtly slapstick humor or they can be overly dramatic, but they showcase some emerging talent.”

African moviemaking is a difficult proposition by any standard. A few African directors, such as

Nigerian producers, directors and actors, frustrated by the lack of market for their wares, began to go straight to the people in the early 1990s by shooting on video (later with digital cameras) and selling their movies, cassette by cassette, in open-air stalls and markets.

In 1992, a straight-to-video film called “Living in Bondage,” about human sacrifice, was filmed in English and became a huge hit.

“That was how the explosion started,” says Richard Mofe-Damijo, 43, one of Nollywood’s biggest heartthrobs and one of the stars of “Behind Closed Doors.” “It just went crazy after that.”

The films — mostly broad comedies or melodramas in which magic and the supernatural featured prominently — were shipped to other English-speaking countries in Africa and brought to Europe and

So many movies were being produced in 2002 — as many as 50 in a week — that everyone had to take four months off to clear the glut.

Today, the industry, centered in the Surulere district of Lagos, is worth at least $50 million annually.

“We have the stories to tell, thousands of them, but there’s a lot to be done,” says Charles Novia, a popular director who has 28 films to his credit. “We need to be more in tune with the new cinematic techniques across the world; we need courses in production techniques. But what is most striking is how popular our films are, not just among our fellow Nigerians, but across the continent. It’s mind-blowing.”

The four films in the AFI Silver’s series — with one film screened on successive Saturdays — are designed to give

Tonight’s showing of “Behind Closed Doors” is billed as a world premiere, with a reception honoring the directors and actors in the series after tonight’s show.

“It’s a dream to think of working in films outside this country, so it should be good to see the films on the big screen,” says Mofe-Damijo.

Another drama, “Thunderbolt,” follows next Saturday, in which a young couple from different tribes are split apart by rumors of infidelity and magical curses.

The comedies “Osuofia in London” and “The London Boy” round out the series Feb. 19 and 26, respectively, with both taking wisecrack shots and observations at the cultural divide between

“It’s a film that’s set in Nigerian culture, but it can be understood by everybody,” says Kingsley Ogoro, director of “Osuofia,” describing his film’s fish-out-of-water plot. “It’s a comedy about a rural man who doesn’t understand Lagos, much less the queen’s land and

Although the exposure of the films to a

“I don’t think we’re that close, to be honest,” says actor Mofe-Damijo. “Until we start working up to international standards, we can’t take part in film festivals like Sundance in the U.S. or others in South Africa and