Nigerian films are making it to the big Film Festivals: Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale, TIFF and so on.
We’re on the map.
But… are we really home?

Are we reaching the market woman in Onitsha?
The hairdresser in Obalende?
The schoolboy or girl in Okigwe who wants to see someone like them on screen?

A lot of the celebrated Nigerian films at international festivals,  as beautifully crafted as they are feel like they were designed to win grants, not hearts.
They carry foreign sensibilities in African wrappers and term it “art”.

Don’t get me wrong, art is powerful.
But art without access is elitism.
And that’s where we keep missing the mark.

Let’s take a step back, shall we?

In 2005, there was a film titled Sitanda, directed by Izu Ojukwu. It bagged five AMAA awards and screened in international spaces. But it didn’t stop there,  it became a household name. It was the average Nigerian lived experience.

In 2006, Amazing Grace was released. Jeta Amata didn’t just make a film,  he made a movement. A period film in Efik that Nigerians actually watched. Was it screened internationally? Yes! But it also filled the halls locally.

What changed?

We started making films that ticked boxes abroad but didn’t beat with our hearts here.

And this is why our stories will continue to struggle at the Oscars.
Because you can’t sell a diluted Africa story to the West and expect applause.
You can’t tell a Nigerian story dressed in European cinematic language, American truth, and Australian expectations and expect to touch Nigerians at the same time.
Until our arts are true to ourselves, it will never be true to the masses.

Audience at a movie theater.

Great cinema is not just what critics applaud.
It’s what your grandmother hums about after watching.
It’s what survives data limits, poor electricity, and still moves people.
It’s a film that makes the banker in Victoria Island and the fisherman in Bayelsa cry for the same reason.

At HUG Media Concept, that’s our mandate.

To make films that heal and stir. That rises globally but remains rooted.
We believe a film can screen at Berlinale and still be quoted at Wuse market, Abuja.

So this is a call to Nigerians filmmakers and funders:
Let’s stop making films about Nigerians and start making films for Nigerians!!!

Between the international film festival and the Nigerian market woman,
there must be a cinema that speaks to both –Godwin Harrison