“The world hates the truth”

For Beninese moviemakers, disinformation represents a crisis of morality, not truth. Drawing on my experience producing a movie with Nàgó (Yorùbá) partners in the Republic of Benin, I show how they embrace artifice: practical techniques for creating audiovisual media that advance their creators’ agenda. These techniques demand that creators separate technical from moral artifice—their production skills must serve the moral imperative to convey truth, an imperative grounded in Indigenous religious logics. Beninese creators emulate Nigeria's Nollywood movies, even as they resist those movies’ tendency to portray Indigenous religions as deceptive. In doing so, they adopt a visual epistemology of “surfacism,” wherein skilled fabricators concentrate on surface images to show Indigenous religions respectfully and safely. These techniques turn moviemaking into an act of religious praise, one that promotes Indigenous religions and conveys moral truths.