Five African-Themed Documentaries Selected for the 2026 Sheffield DocFest

Sheffield DocFest, the UK’s leading documentary festival and one of the world’s most influential markets for documentary projects, has announced its 2026 official selection. The selected African documentaries include the Nigerian coming-of-age story Crocodile, the Nigerian-focused political documentary about Moshood Abiola (MKO), and the Nigerian climate-activism documentary Hope is a Word. Additionally, the South African film Notes from the Underground and the Ethiopian-focused Wax & Gold are part of the selection. The festival is scheduled from 10th to 15th June, 2026. 

MKO

This year’s International Competition presents a lineup of 6 World Premieres, 1 International Premiere, and 1 European Premiere. Ose Oyamendan’s MKO executive produced by Derren Lawford, Paul Cadieux, Mark Jonathan Harris and produced by Veronique Bernard, Oyamendan, and O2A Media is one of the selections. The documentary  unravels the cover-up behind one of Africa’s most consequential political crimes. After Abiola won Nigeria’s 1993 election, the military led government annulled it and he died in prison under mysterious circumstances. MKO uses firsthand accounts from presidents, Soyinka, his family, and U.S. officials to expose the cover-up and ask who betrayed Nigerian democracy. As the trail leads through broken promises from Washington and London, the question of who killed Abiola becomes inseparable from the question of who abandoned Nigerian democracy.

Maria Galliani Dyrvik’s Hope is a Word will compete in the International First Feature Competition section. In Nigeria’s oil-poisoned Niger Delta, poet-activist Nnimmo Bassey trains a new generation of writers to fight back. As spills and gas flaring tear communities apart, Bassey gathers young voices — from Ogoni to his son, rapper Ukpono — in his workshops. There, poetry becomes healing and protest. Can their words carry forward a decades-old struggle? The film, which is a Norwegian, Italian, and Nigerian production executive produced by Femi Odugbemi (Zuri24 Media) and Chiara Andrich (Ginko Film), and produced by Anita Jonsterhaug Vedå. 

The Youth Jury Award is selected by the Youth Jury, a group of passionate film enthusiasts aged 18–23. Pietra Brettkelly and The Critics’ Crocodile follows a group of Kaduna-based young filmmakers who produced films with smartphones and recycled materials. In Kaduna, Nigeria, Godwin and Raymond lead The Critics.  Shot over the span of thirteen years, the documentary becomes a story of creativity, ambition, and growing up together. As the group grows up, success opens doors but tests the bonds between them in ways none of them expected. 

Notes from the Underground

Adrian Van Wyk and Chris Kets’ Notes from the Underground is a South-African rooted documentary that maps hip-hop’s journey from 1980s battles to now. At its core is Isaac Mutant and his daughter Lyrix, whose conversations weave personal memory into collective history. Archival footage, smuggled Black consciousness texts, and new queer voices show how lyric writing, dance, and graffiti turned oppression into knowledge, identity, and resistance. The documentary is showing at the Rhythms section of the festival. 

Ruth Beckermann’s Wax & Gold is an Australian and Italian production that centers an African narrative. In the doc, Beckermann takes residence in Addis Ababa’s Hilton hotel to trace Ethiopia’s thorny history. Opened by Haile Selassie in the 1960s, the hotel embodied both continental hope and imperial ego. Wax & Gold weaves archival footage with conversations among hotel staff and Beckermann’s reflections as a European woman between “familiar and foreign.” Inside: polished halls. Outside: bus queues and half-built towers. The film sits in that tension.