The Exclusive Screening and the Cinema Short Films Deserve

On October 5, 2025, filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts gathered at Alliance Française, Mike Adenuga Centre in Ikoyi for The Exclusive Screening, an intimate showcase dedicated to celebrating short films on the big screen. The event unfolded across two sessions: an afternoon showing at 3:00 p.m. and an evening presentation at 6:00 p.m.

Among the audience was Myde Glover, founder of Magic Media Studios, who launched The Exclusive Screening in collaboration with Nne Studios. Reflecting on the inaugural 2022 edition, Glover admits the experience was exhausting. “I didn’t think I’d want to do it again, my partner and I were basically doing everything ourselves,” he recalls. But persistent inquiries about a follow-up convinced him otherwise. The audience response proved him right; people showed up, eager to see short films given their rightful place in the cinema.

The event program posed a pointed question: “Why can’t short films have premieres just like major productions?” The organizers answered emphatically, with a red carpet reception featuring Nollywood actors including Sharon Rotimi, Nneoma Onyekwele, and Detola Jones. Attendees arrived in their Sunday bests: women in heels, men in polished shoes, everyone well dressed.

The first screening was It Shines Bright on Monday, starring Rotimi and Onyekwele as two sisters fractured by secrets. Onyekwele’s character, the elder sister, had shielded her younger sibling from their father’s abuse, a protection that Rotimi’s character tragically misreads as favoritism. Believing herself unloved, she flees as soon as she can. The film’s power lay in Rotimi’s performance: her character’s visible anguish over years of misunderstanding felt almost unbearable to watch. Reconciliation came only after their father’s death, when the sisters finally confronted what had been left unsaid. Shot in tight close-ups, the film became a meditation on fractured communication and the cost of running from difficult truths instead of facing them.

Convictions, directed by Ola “Naked” Jegede, followed next. Mofe Okorodudu stars as a woman emerging from prison after 14 years, only to discover that her son had been taken from her. She steps into a world that has moved on without her: her former boyfriend (Bobby Ikpe) has married another woman (Wumi Tuase-Fosudo), who now raises her boy as her own and is determined to keep the truth hidden. Okorodudu’s character scrambles to rebuild her life, taking on menial jobs while fighting a legal battle to reclaim her child. The film cuts to the bone with its examination of judgment without understanding, society’s refusal to ask why before condemning. Beneath the custody drama lies a deeper exploration of motherhood stripped away and the weight of loneliness. 

Two Hearts One Soul presents a whirlwind romance compressed into a single day. Producer Myde Glover steps behind and in front of the camera here, playing a man who meets a woman (Miracle Inyanda) by chance on the street. Their spontaneous connection recalls the 2023 UK romantic comedy Rye Lane, where strangers bond over the course of one serendipitous day. The film reveals that this brief encounter profoundly alters both their lives. However, the final act becomes overstuffed, introducing the woman’s death and the man’s near-suicide in a rush of plot twists, the core message cuts through: a single meeting can redirect the course of a life. At its heart, the film affirms that human connection is essential for survival.

The final film, We Are Good People, proved to be the evening’s triumph. A darkly comedic thriller, it plunges viewers into the precarious dynamics of a friend group. An engagement between two people who share no romantic feelings, secret affairs bubbling beneath polite surfaces, and then, a murder that forces them all into complicity. Director Ola “Naked” Jegede keeps the audience delightfully unmoored, each twist arriving unexpectedly while the humor amplifies rather than dilutes the tension.

When the credits rolled, cast and crew from all four films took the stage for their bows. The applause was warm, a room full of people grateful to have witnessed short films given the cinematic treatment they deserved. The Exclusive Screening had answered its own question: short films don’t just deserve premieres like major productions, they can command them.