30-year-old Nigerian filmmaker wins $1M to develop his feature film

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April 21, 2017 12:44 PM

Faraday Okoro And Biyi Bandele’s ‘Nigerian Prince’ has won $1million grant at Tribeca Film Festival, New York.

Faraday Okoro

The grant is a new initiative introduced to the program with the aim of helping emerging filmmakers. The program which is called AT&T Presents: Untold Stories, kicked off this year in collaboration with the Tribeca Film Festival.

The grant awarded the 30-year-old Nigerian-American filmmaker, will be used by him to develop his feature film "Nigerian Prince," which was chosen out of five finalists by a panel that includes filmmaker, Lee Daniels.

The New York University film school graduate will shoot "Nigerian Prince" in Nigeria, and might feature Chiwetel Ejiofor, whom he has already pitched the project to.

Written and directed by Okoro, the movie will be produced by Biyi Bandele and Oscar Hernandez-Topete.

Biyi Bandele made his directorial debut with the 2013 movie, Half of a Yellow Sun." He also directed the critically acclaimed "Shuga season 3" and "Fifty."

Set in Lagos, the film follows the story of a stubborn Nigerian-American teenager forced to go to Nigeria against his will and joins forces with his cousin, an internet scammer, in order to return to the United States.

A New York City based Nigerian-American filmmaker, Faraday Okoro graduated with Distinction from Howard University and has MFA in filmmaking from NYU Film School.

His debut short film "Full-Windsor" screened in 14 major film festivals, including the Los Angeles Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival among others.

His short film "Blitz" also premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

"Nigeria Prince" will premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

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