Following 2024’s Technologic theme, the S16 Film Festival is now calling upon all of the lights for its 2025 edition. Themed ‘Let There Be Light’, the festival is now in its fifth edition and brings not one but two additions this year: an additional venue and the AFP Critics Prize.
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The fifth edition of the S16 Film Festival (S16) is set to take place from December 1-5, 2025, at the Alliance Française and Filmhouse Landmark in Lagos. Ahead of the event, the festival has revealed the full slate of short films, including those in competition and those screening as part of the programme. The festival will also feature a presentation of Brazilian short films as part of the festival’s partnership with Mostra de Cinemas Africanos, a Brazilian African film festival. The short films are Tigrezza (Vinicius Eliziario) and 5 Fitas (Heraldo De Deus & Vilma Martins).
Spanning five days, the festival opens with Cotton Queen, the debut feature written and directed by Sudanese filmmaker Suzannah Mirghani, and closes with Memory of Princess Mumbi by Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser.
The festival will also host special feature presentations, with Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow, Minimals in a Titanic World from Rwandan filmmaker Mbabazi Sharangabo Philbert Aime having its Nigerian premiere, and Fantastique by Marjolijn Prins featured as the Dutch presentation.
Earlier this year, it was announced that the African Film Press will give out its inaugural Critics Award at the festival. Established to recognise film criticism and the role of critics in African cinema culture, the founders of AFP, Tambay Obenson (Akoroko), Jennifer Ochieng (Sinema Focus) and Ikeade Oriade (What Kept Me Up), will serve as jurors, with the winning filmmaker receiving a cash prize, a trophy, and a certificate.
Here are the official selections in different categories:
Shorts (In Competition)
Obi Is a Boy
Director – Dika Ofoma
A femme-presenting young man returns home for his mother’s funeral and is forced to navigate the violence and gender expectations that have shaped his fractured relationship with his father and his place in the community.
Wrong Way
Director – Nana Kofi Asihene
A Ghanaian parable about guilt, consequence, and the cruel nature of fate.
Journeys of Singleness
Director – Barnabas Ayo-Ilekhaize
A young woman goes on a journey of self, trying to blend her work, passion, and maybe even a love life?
Mother
Director – Olamide Adio & Victor Daniel
A young tailor caring for her widowed father in Ibada faces the uncertainty of an unplanned pregnancy.
Back to the Theatre Vox
Director – Amina Awa Niang
Mamadou and Junior would have everything to be the best friends in the world if their two grandfathers, a famous photographer and novelist who were good friends, got along again.
Song of Solomon
Director – Enobong Albert
In 2022, a group of armed men attacked a church in Owo, Ibadan, Western Nigeria. We follow the experience of a pastor witnessing the horror.
Ode! There Is No Bus Stop on This Trip
Director – Donald Tombia
Ejikeme uses borrowed money to throw Akumjeli a psychedelic birthday celebration, but the high comes crashing down when loan sharks arrive demanding their debt.
About Sarah
Director – S.A.D. Aloka
When asked if he believes in love, a nameless narrator traces the memories of his past relationships, each a fragment of affection, illusion, and longing. Among them stands Sarah, the woman who quietly became his obsession.
Morning Morning
Director – Gozirimuu Obinna
A man suffering through a heartbreak finds “closure” in a wet dream.
Keys
Director – Mooreoluwa Natasha Wright
When her relationship with her domineering father reaches a breaking point, a repressed
young girl decides to make her escape from isolation, but a perpetual dark energy emanating from a forbidden room in her house gives her a reason to stay.
My Jebba Story
Director – Kagho Idhebor
Set in Ebute Metta, Lagos, this personal visual story captures the filmmaker’s reflections on his early years on Jebba Street, using archival footage and memories to celebrate the people and moments that shaped his journey as a storyteller.
Traces of the Sun
Director – Rete Poki
13 Nigerians share lessons in friendship, family, and womanhood in contemporary Nigeria.
Second Wind
Directors – Celestina Aleobua, Sochima Nwakaeze
After years of mental torment, Tebogo, a young and creative final-year university student, finds the courage to confront her classmate Antoine on a journey down an isolated country road.
70 × 7
Director – Chiemeka Osuagwu
A woman and her priest meet and have a conversation about forgiveness.
The Passage
Director – Ntokozo Mlaba
The Passage tells the story of Bafana, a bright and ambitious 17-year-old, whose dreams of becoming a lawyer are overshadowed by his toxic loyalty to his best friend, Mrembula.
Shorts Programme
Déjà Nu
Director – Rolf Hellat
Voices, rhythms, existences in nature and civilisation intertwine into an audiovisual poem about the transient body.
Siraam
Director – Uzoamaka Power
After a painful breakup and a string of reckless choices, a struggling actor begins to rebuild her life, learning self-worth, healing, and what it truly means to choose herself.
Dog Shit Food
Director – Fukuda Pero
One shot, many voices—fighting, dancing and filming entangle as the Batwa and the filmmaker improvise their presences together.
Rivers of Days
Director– Mark Street
Using hundreds of transparent photographic stills animated on a lightbox and abstract Super-8 footage, Rivers of Days meditates on the illusory nature of the passage of time
There’d Be Days Like These
Director – Dike
Un Deux Trois
Director – Brooke Dooley
Told in three poetic chapters, Un Deux Trois is a woman’s journey through pain, presence, and possibility—a cinematic act of letting go and moving forward.
Mango
Director – Joan Iyiola
Zadie is an independent florist, privately suffering from fibroids, but determined to take her career to the next level. When a dream job arrives, Zadie searches for help in order to control her morphing body, but the unwanted growths threaten to take over.
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