Nigerian filmmaker Dika Ofoma’s Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes) has secured NOK 600,000 (approximately USD 64,000) in production support through Norway’s Sørfond 2026 fund, adding a new international partner to the feature project as it continues its development journey.
The queer reincarnation drama is among ten projects selected for funding this year, with Norwegian company DUOfilm becoming the project’s latest confirmed co-production partner. Producers Linda Bolstad Strønen, Ingrid Lill Høgtun, and Marie Fuglestein Lægreid join Nigerian producer Blessing Uzzi of Bluhouse Studios. DUOfilm most recently backed Rwanda’s Cannes-selected Ben’imana and Sudan’s You Will Die at 20.
The grant win follows Kachifo’s success at the 2026 Locarno Open Doors programme, where it received the Sørfond Award, earning Ofoma and Uzzi an invitation to pitch the project in Norway last November. The film had previously emerged as one of the standout projects of the 2025 Open Doors edition, collecting three awards.
Written and directed by Ofoma, Kachifo follows Achebe and Nnanna, two lovers bound across lifetimes by a blood oath who are reunited in contemporary Nigeria. As their connection deepens, they must navigate a society hostile to their relationship in a story that blends romance, spirituality, and questions of destiny.
In announcing the grant, the Sørfond jury praised the film’s dual-timeline structure and its exploration of love across generations. The jury highlighted the project’s commitment to portraying tenderness and belonging alongside the realities faced by queer people in Nigeria, ultimately describing it as “a story about choosing love in the face of fear.”
This year’s Sørfond jury consisted of Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, producer Mette Cheng Munthe-Kaas, and Lasse Skagen, Head of Programme for Films from the South at The Festival Agency. The Norwegian Film Institute received 53 applications requesting approximately NOK 37.8 million in support, with seven fiction features and three documentaries ultimately selected.
“Sørfond contributes to strong international collaborations and creates space for stories and perspectives that would otherwise face greater challenges,” said Norwegian Film Institute director Kjersti Mo. “These are films with high artistic ambitions, and several of them are likely to be seen at major festivals in the years to come.”
The latest support marks another step in the project’s international trajectory. Ofoma and Uzzi recently participated in La Fabrique Cinéma 2026, while Ofoma was selected for Berlinale Talents earlier this year. According to project materials, Kachifo has already secured a percentage of its financing through private equity investment in Nigeria against a total budget of €841,652.
The project also signals the expanding ambitions of Bluhouse Studios. While the company is best known internationally for producing Afolabi Olalekan’s Freedom Way, which premiered at TIFF in 2024, it recently broke into Nigeria’s all-time top ten box office chart with the romantic comedy Call of My Life, showcasing the breadth of its slate.
Other African projects receiving Sørfond support this year include South Africa’s Baptism of Silence, Tanzania’s Children of Honey, and Morocco’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me.
Financed through Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs development aid budget, Sørfond is administered by the Norwegian Film Institute in partnership with The Festival Agency. Since launching in 2011, the fund has supported 116 productions across the Global South.
Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes) is targeting a late 2027 release.
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