A Capsuled History of Indie Filmmaking in Nigeria and Alternative Screening Spaces

C.J “Fiery” Obasi, Abba T. Makama and Michael Omonua are names synonymous with indie filmmaking in Nigeria. In 2021, the trio’s anthology film Juju Stories premiered and won the Boccalino d’Oro prize for best film at the Locarno Film Festival. 

In 2016, the filmmakers met at the Ikeja City Mall and laid the foundation of a film collective that would be called the Surreal 16 Collective. Inspired by the Dogme 95, the Surreal 16 Collective (S16) modeled its manifesto after the Danish Dogme 95 movement founded in 1995,  drawing directly from the Dogme 95’s “Vow of Chastity,” a set of 10 rigid rules, and created its own list of 16 Rules and Guidelines. Like the Danish film movement, the Surreal 16 Collective sought to establish a counter-aesthetic through a formal, restrictive manifesto.

The Surreal 16 Collective rebels against the dominant, shallow, and creatively stagnant cinematic offering of mainstream cinema and filmmakers. The vision is noble: rescue Nigerian cinema from the domineering slapstick comedies, melodramas, and formulaic productions. 

For his solo projects, Obasi made Ojuju in 2014, a zero-budget zombie thriller that explores environmental neglect and systemic failure; O-Town, his  2015 project, a gritty crime thriller inspired by Obasi’s hometown; Hello, Rain in 2018 was a short film adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s African futuristic short story; and Mami Wata in 2023, a visually stunning film rooted in West African mythology won him the Sundance Jury Prize for Cinematography. 

Makama is credited with Green White Green,  a film about a group of young artist friends biding their time before heading off to college and The Lost Okoroshi, a oneiric film about a security guard who wakes up as a masquerade.

Loop Count, Born, The Man Who Cuts Tattoos and Rehearsal are credited to Omonua. In 2017, they made their first anthology, Visions and in 2021, they made Juju Stories,  an anthology film exploring Nigerian folklore and urban legend. 

In 2021, the Surreal 16 Collective curated an art house film festival for African indie filmmakers from all over the world fittingly called the S16 Film Festival founded in collaboration with A Whitespace Creative Agency, Fatherland, and OAK Media. The festival is described as a “platform that celebrates cinema as an art form and promotes new African and World cinematic voices. S16 is an alternative to mainstream Nollywood.” However, prior to the S16 explosion, there was another alternative screening space for Nigerian and African independent filmmakers. 

Founded in 2015, the now-defunct The Lagos Film Society co-founded and curated by Didi Cheeka and other Nigerian critics and cinephiles laid the foundation of Nigerian alternative spaces and film curation. The Lagos Film Society was curated as an alternative cinema centre dedicated to founding the first arthouse cinema in Nigeria complete with a film library. The Lagos Film Society created a film hub where filmmakers, film experts, filmgoers, film critics engaged in critical conversations around Nigerian and African cinema.  As a cultural institution, it was dedicated to finding, nurturing and celebrating African filmmaking, and offering filmmakers and film lovers a platform to survey a range of works from across and beyond the continent as well as make a renewed Nigerian contribution to World Cinema. 

At that time in the Nigerian film industry, the industry boasted of vibrant commercial cinema but the curators of the Lagos Film Society believed that Nigerian cinema needed new narratives, crossing experiences and intimate familiarity with the best of world cinema. According to The Lagos Film Society, they were trying to create “an audience and venue for non-mainstream narrative, to imagine new ways to reach people by organizing monthly screenings and ciné-concerts in theatres, in underground places, in concert halls, in wine bars trying to reach all kinds of audiences.” 

During its lifetime, LFS collaborated with institutions such as Goethe-Institut Lagos, Nigerian Film Corporation, and Africine critics to display works and retrospectives of auteur and alternative filmmakers who aren’t represented in the main commercial market in Nigeria. The simple goal was to open an arthouse cinema in Lagos and they curated screenings of alternative Nigerian and African titles to achieve this goal. A decade after, the country is now sprawling with “audience and venue for non-mainstream narrative”. 

Ola Balogun is one of the pioneering Nigerian filmmakers who pushed for making well-told and directed films. As a unique figure in Nigerian cinema in the late 70s and early 80s, he influenced the country’s cinema culture and paved the way for the Nollywood boom that began in the early 1990s. In 2025, Balogun is mostly on the fringes of Nollywood film history and scholarship. In film circles, his name doesn’t elicit enthusiastic recognition. The fact that he is virtually forgotten outside of Nigeria nowadays is also a function of the fact that many copies of his films have disappeared. Only five of his ten feature-length films are currently available, many of them in a fragile condition. 

Balogun completed his studies at the IDHEC film school in Paris, where he also made his first feature film, ALPHA in 1972. Upon returning to Nigeria, he made documentary and fictional films in the country, neighbouring African countries and Brazil. The absence of a technical and financial infrastructure in Nigeria didn’t deter his filmmaking interest as he articulated in an interview with Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Rather, it prompted him to found his own production company, Afrocult Foundation, and personally organised the screenings of his films. These independent screenings are indicative of a Nigerian independent filmmaker conscious of the structural and cultural limitations of his surroundings and empowers themselves with innovative ideas and actions. This distinctive, innovative and solution-oriented traits is what can be found in the contemporary Nigerian indie filmmakers and curators. They are creating films full of passion and uniting a wide range of cultural and cinematic influence and wielding them to make films and spaces that carry a unique vision. 

In a commercially-driven and colonial-controlled film landscape that suffers from an umbrage of non-Nigerian titles and filmmakers, Balogun was one of the filmmakers whose narrative don’t just confront political issues but also communicates the essence of African cultural identity, he does so with an artistic consciousness that many of his contemporaries don’t have. This mantle, as already discussed, was picked up during 2016 by the S16 trio who dared to be different from an industry that prioritizes, promotes and privileges hastily conceived and produced productions. Balogun’s art conscious cinema and Cheeka’s independent screening spaces are some of the pioneering alternative films and spaces in Nigerian film history. 

A decade after the S16 Collective was formed and the now-defunct Lagos Film Society started, the country is now brimming with independent filmmakers, film clubs and communities that cater to auteur-driven narratives and filmmakers. In Port-Harcourt, there’s the recently launched Visions, a film society founded by Olohije Oyakhire to be a film hub dedicated to building “a steady, intimate space where film lovers, creatives, students, and curious audiences can meet to watch films and discuss them beyond their entertainment appeal.” 

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In Ibadan, there’s the Ibadan Indie Film Awards and its monthly ticketed film screening. The IFA Open Mic screening is a space where local filmmakers showcase their short films to eager audiences. For filmmakers, it’s a dedicated space to receive constructive feedback on their work and connect with fellow creatives. For attendees, it’s an opportunity to watch films by local creators, engage in post-screening discussions with the filmmakers and a chance to connect with the Ibadan film community. There’s also the student-led and coordinated Thursday Film Series, one of the oldest and longest running dedicated Nigerian film clubs. The history of  weekly TFS isn’t publicly available but it’s possible its originality lies with the now-defunct Black History Film Festival that happened from 23rd to 28th of August, 2018 at the University of Ibadan. The weekly screening gathers film enthusiasts to engage in meaningful and intellectual conversations around the selected films. It’s important to note that the weekly selected film favors non-mainstream and alternative Nigerian and non-Nigerian titles. 

In Calabar, there’s Nocturna Film House founded by multidisciplinary creative, Kufreabasi Eyo. It’s a hybrid film club and filmmaking collective that hosts screenings of Nigerian and non-Nigerian titles. Beyond screening, the club is also interested in creating their own films. They did this with Eyo’s directorial short film debut, Banana Boat. Benin has A Short Fest curated and founded by Nigerian filmmaker, ldiagi Ernest Eromosele. The space is solely dedicated to showing short films by Nigerian filmmakers. 

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In Abuja, there’s the Fenmore Studios‘s Magic of Cinema Film Festival which returns for its second year in 2025. It’s described as a cozy, creative celebration where they come together to enjoy films, fashion showcases, and real conversations with the people who make and love stories.” There’s also the Tswa Film Festival celebrating bold voices and diverse cinema from Abuja, Nigeria and the world, as well as the recently launched Afrosonic Film Club, a monthly series dedicated to Nigerian & African music documentaries, diaspora stories, and classic African cinema. The Abuja arm of the nomadic Screen in Transit film community is curated by Rete Poki, Ife Olutayo, Zainabu Ibrahim and Amanda Madumere. 

In Lagos, there’s  Nelson C.J’s  A Third Space that offers an intimate gathering to intellectually engage with art in its various mediums. There’s also the Home Movie Film Club curated by Ojuromi Eboseyi Rachel as a monthly film club featuring films by BIPOC directors. The Family Film Club and its monthly curated Film Therapy is a cozy monthly film screening gathering where Nigerians can connect and explore the stories that shape them. There’s also Canvas and African Stories Untold’s Unreleased Movies screenings. 

For five years, the S16 Film Festival has become a haven for Nigerian independent filmmakers, frustrated critics and audiences. Its just concluded edition saw the organizers making major announcements that will further shape the Nigerian indie film space. There’s plan to launch a film lab, monthly screenings, and a dedicated distribution arm beginning in 2026. According to a Culture Custodian retrospective review of the festival, “What began as a filmmaker-centred festival founded by the minds behind titles like Juju Stories, Ojuju, The Lost Okoroshi, and Mami Wata (with upcoming individual projects including CJ Obasi’s La Pyramide and Michael Omonua’s Galatians) is now evolving into a multi-platform ecosystem designed to nurture and position Nigerian auteurs on the global stage.”

There is also a new partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, backed by the Embassy of France. Courtesy of the Embassy of France, five S16 alumni including Kagbo Idhebor (2025 Audience Choice Award winner), Nneoha Ann Aligwe (2024 Audience Choice Award winner), Nosazemen Agbontaen and Uzoamaka Power and Dika Ofoma will travel to France’s Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Additionally, in partnership with the Goethe-Institut, the festival will be hosting monthly screenings. S16 is also entering the distribution landscape, its first move is a partnership with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) that will bring films to a nationwide audience.  

The Nigerian film culture has been described as dying or dead. But, these announcements and the number of intimate alternative screening spaces popping up across the country don’t agree. The Nigerian film culture has been touted to be dying for valid reasons but these festivals, spaces and filmmakers are trying to keep it alive.