Nigerians are united in their exhibitionist and exaggerative tendencies. The cultural and social conditioning of the Nigerian society makes living a solitary and modest lifestyle impossible. Parties, even intimate ones, must be exaggerated, music must be chaotically high, clothes must carry markings of wealth even if said wearer isn’t wealthy. Thus, public display is celebrated […]
2 days ago
Afolabi Olalekan’s Freedom Way written and produced by Blessing Uzzi, takes a lengthy and laborious 90 minutes to drive home a single point: our lives, as humans and Nigerians, especially, are connected. Uzzi’s script assembles a varied cast to make this point: the co-founders of Easy Go Ride, Themba (Jesse Suntele), Tayo (Ogaranya), and Edi […]
18 hours ago
The Yoruba people have a saying: “Sátídé ti ọ dà, àti Jímọ́h láti mọ́.” Although there are different iterations of this saying, what they loosely translate to is that tomorrow’s greatness is foreshadowed in the details of today. This often-recycled axiom captures my thoughts after watching the trailer for Akay Mason’s Red Circle which has […]
1 month ago
What would be an ordinary street on an ordinary road in Ibadan is much more than that. Behind one of the many wooden stalls lined up at the side of the road is a bare land transformed into the studio of Adewale Kolawole John, a young artist whose works have crossed the continent’s shores and […]
1 year ago
Ifeoma Nkiruka Chukwuogo’s Bariga Sugar, an empathetic and thoughtful look into the realities of Nigerian sex workers and sex work, was released in 2016. Dika Ofoma’s A Japa Tale, which crammed conversations around religion, abortion rights, migration, the Nigerian dream and love in its twenty-seven minute timeline, was released in 2023. Korede Azeez’s With Difficulty […]
4 days ago
Karabo Lediga’s directorial feature-length debut film Sabbatical, is a semi-autobiographical film inspired by a homecoming, after years away. However, in Lediga’s modified retelling, Lesego (Mona Monyane), a successful and ambitious banker has taken her identity and (Clementine Mosimane), is the director’s fictional mother. The film, which recently arrived on Prime Video after a successful world […]
5 days ago
Wingonia Ikpi’s directorial feature-length debut film The Lost Days is one of the twelve films made from The First Features Project, an initiative spearheaded by Native Filmworks and Michelangelo Productions, driven by Steve Gukas and Dotun Olakunri. The First Feature Project which was kickstarted in the panic-driven world in November 2020, was an effort to […]
5 days ago
Lesego (Mona Monyane), the lead character in Karabo Lediga’s directorial feature-length debut film Sabbatical, is haunted and confronted by many demons. The first is the depressing knowledge that the career she has built for decades is gradually crumbling alongside the financial and social security it provides. Secondly, the decades-long demon that settled into her life […]
1 week ago
Nyasha Kadandara’s documentary film Matabeleland, which recently had its African premiere at the Encounters Documentary Film Festival, explores an overlooked and unresolved national trauma that haunts Zimbabweans. Centering on the story of Chris Nyathi, a man who believes his family has been cursed ever since his father was brutally murdered in 1983, the documentary explores […]
1 week ago
Ema Edosio-Deelen‘s When Nigeria Happens, Nigeria’s pioneering contemporary dance film, is slated to be the opening film at the Locarno Film Festival‘s esteemed Open Doors Section for its world premiere. This marks a seminal moment, as it is the first African film and the first contemporary dance film from Nigeria to open this pivotal section, […]
2 weeks ago
In modern-day Nigeria, poverty & resilience intersect in a world ruled by fate and chance. The Odds, written and directed by Loup Garou’s Kewa Oni, is set against the vivid backdrop of Lagos in an incredibly intense 24-hour period. It tells the story of Sule, a young man whose life is irrevocably altered by a […]
2 weeks ago
2024 ended with the rumor of Netflix discontinuing its activities in the Nigerian film market. Films and series weren’t given worldwide distribution. Prime Video had early in 2024 announced restraining its funding and commissioning of projects in the African and Middle East market. Thus, 2025 started with lots of energy-draining and exhausting private and public […]
2 weeks ago
Minutes into our call, Aleruchi Kinika, whose photographs have the uncanny ability to evoke a stillness that can feel almost transcendental, tells me she was perpetually depressed, weird, and reclusive as a child. “There’s a reason why my work is the way it is. I was a melancholic kid growing up. I felt so alone […]
2 weeks ago
