Reviews
AFRIFF 2025: ‘Lace Relations’ Review (Documentary)
AFRIFF: There are familiar patterns in history, events that repeat themselves with little to no variations, circumstances that mothers and daughters will experience and moments that nations will often not learn from. With Lace Relations, […]
AFRIFF 2025: ‘Son of the Soil’ Review
AFRIFF: There is no scarcity of bodies in Son of the Soil. Bleeding and strewn across the streets; glistening with sweat, tears and blood; running and ramming into each other; it’s a visceral violence that […]
‘The Greatest Actor of All Time’ Stage Review: Temi Fosudo’s Three-Person Play on The Price of Artistic Purity
When artists cannot change the world, they bicker. Functioning otherwise as actor, writer and co-producer on the project, Temilolu Fosudo brings an energy easy to root for in his directing of this three-man hassle that […]
AFRIFF 2025: ‘Pasa Faho’ Review
AFRIFF: From the beginning of Pasa Faho, Igbo is front and centre in suburban Melbourne in Australia. The soundtrack plays Peter King’s “Jo Jolo” as the white people go about their business on the street. […]
AFRIFF 2025: ‘3 Cold Dishes’ Review
AFRIFF: Revenge is a dish best served cold and the Burna Boy-produced 3 Cold Dishes serves you three incomplete meals that leave you wanting more. Directed by Oluseyi Asurf (Hakkunde), the film tells the story […]
‘Osamede’ Review: Ivie Okujaye’s Magic is Dimmed in Dulled-Down Epic
If you squint hard enough, you can almost glimpse the film that Osamede is trying to be: a sweeping historical epic with gods and magic, but also a character drama that probes the motivations and […]
SVAFF 2025: ‘Lights Out’ Review
SVAFF: Memory is a fickle thing. It is tasked with defining who we are and the stories we tell, but it is also inherently unreliable; to remember something is to contort it, to change it […]
Film Mischief 2025: ‘Beyond Olympic Glory’ Review (Short Documentary)
Film Mischief: Shedrack Salami’s Beyond Olympic Glory opens with Cynthia Ogunsemilore walking through the streets in her sports attire. Her voice rises gently: “People in the community were saying stuff like, ‘As a girl, why […]
News
CJ Obasi’s ‘La Pyramide’ Moves to Red Souk Work-in-Progress Market Section, Still in Production
In a bid for further global recognition, audience reach, and funding, the Nigerian film industry has, for years, stretched its branches to different parts of the world, and this is not any different in 2025. […]
Port Harcourt’s Visions Film Society Bridges Global South Cinema with Nigerian Audiences
Film screenings and discussions are already commonplace in Lagos. The city is a Nigerian cinephile’s dream place to live. We documented the work of a couple of initiatives in our 2023 The Tentmakers series. At […]
‘Osamede’ Wins Best Narrative Feature at Silicon Valley Film Festival
Osamede has won Best Narrative Feature at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival, taking top honours for a fantasy film that draws its power from the documented history of the Benin Kingdom. The win recognises […]
Pan-African Collaborations Take a New Turn in E-Sports Drama Series ‘Respawn’
2025 Pan African collaborations take a new and rare turn in Respawn, an e-sports drama series set across Nigeria and South Africa, set to be produced by Sonepa (Nigerian prod company), Nile Entertainment and GameEvo […]
The Unsung Architects of Cinema: The Executive Producers Behind ‘The Herd’
When audiences walked into cinemas to see The Herd by Daniel Etim Effiong, they saw powerful performances, breathtaking visuals, and a story that stirred deep emotions. What they didn’t see, and rarely ever do, were […]
AFRIFF 2025: 22 Films You Need to Watch
AFRIFF: This year’s festival has almost 100 selections in 13 categories, which will showcase a diverse lineup of features, shorts, student shorts, and documentaries spanning across Africa and the diaspora. These films, including Nigerian premieres […]
AFRIFF 2025: Official Selections, Panels & Jury Lineup
The Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) will kick off its 14th edition on November 2nd, running until November 8th in Lagos, Nigeria. The theme of this year’s festival is Rhythms of the Continent: The Afrobeats […]
Can Africa’s Creative Industries Outgrow Their Governments?
A lot is happening right now in the film and creative industry at large, specifically what Tambay Obenson of Akoroko (an AFP partner) describes as an “Africa interest.” In a private conversation, he noted this […]
Essays
CJ Obasi’s ‘La Pyramide’ Moves to Red Souk Work-in-Progress Market Section, Still in Production
In a bid for further global recognition, audience reach, and funding, the Nigerian film industry has, for years, stretched its branches to different parts of the world, and this is not any different in 2025. […]
‘Hotel Labamba’ Review: Biodun Stephen Presents The Most Straightforward Murder Mystery Ever
Hotel Labamba is not unlike any other murder mystery. Usually, the plot is set rolling with acquainted characters arriving at a designated location, or just random characters happening to be in the same place at […]
Everything We Know About ‘Tarella’, The African Retelling of the Cinderella Story, So Far
“I always wanted to tell an African Cinderella story, especially after research revealed the original narrative was based on a black (Egyptian) girl called Rhodopis,” revealed Lolo Eremie, the film’s producer, writer and co-director, in […]
‘Barbie’ Review: Margot Robbie Shines as Titular Doll but the Film’s Clunky Writing Casts a Shadow
It was always going to be an extraordinary feat to bring the titular toy owned by Mattel Inc. to the silver screen. Partly because, with time, Barbie has gained a lot of significance in pop […]
‘Orisa’ Review: Fiery Traditional Epic Feels Like a Thrilling Reproduction of a Familiar Cultural Display
Growing up, some of the most popular films of Yoruba Nollywood were historical period films which included epics. Though mostly low budget and with questionable production quality, we enjoyed them for the action, the depiction […]
‘They Cloned Tyrone’ Review: Neighbourhood Sci-Fi Plot Packs A Punch
We have seen many films like Juel Taylor’s feature debut, and they all fall into a common subgenre, blaxploitation, a genre of film born in the 70s. Common features of this genre are black protagonists, […]
